Saint Seducing Gold
by Melantha Delmar
Summary: Draco had a weakness for girls with hair as pretty as his own... An epic romance of Romeo and Juliet proportions told in two parts. Author's Note: I am rewriting this - and hopefully getting to the end this time. Expect to see the newly rewritten version soon!
1. In a Chance Encounter

_A/N: The cast list for this fic pretty much matches up with Shakespeare's characters. If you're confused, I'll clarify. but just keep in mind that this is an RJ **flavored** fic, not a strict replication of the play._

****

**Saint-Seducing Gold**

_"Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;_

_Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;_

_Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:_

_What is it else? a madness most discreet,_

_A choking gall, and a preserving sweet."_

**Part One: Enemies to Peace**

**Chapter One: In a Chance Encounter**

_"What storm is this that blows so contrary?"_

-----

It was only the first week of school of the new school year, and Draco Malfoy, the newly named Head Boy of Hogwarts, was skulking along the hallways with his cloak drawn up in an effort to conceal his face. This fervent action was not particularly normal for the ambitious Slytherin, and those who noticed shot him strange looks of askance. He cursed and pulled the hood a little lower over his infamous silver-blonde hair. If there had ever been a time in his life that he had wanted an Invisibility Cloak more, he couldn't remember it.

"Drakey!" a simpering voice called from behind him. Draco cursed again (quite a bit more colorfully) and quickened his step. "Drakey, wait up!" the voice called, desperate and breathless because its owner was running.

It wasn't that Draco had never run from anything before in his life, but the fact that he was fleeing a _girl_ made him a bit ashamed. After all, he was the self-proclaimed leader of the most powerful House in Hogwarts and one of the school's smartest students to boot. Not _the_ smartest because of that stupid Mudblood, Granger, and his cousin, Grahm Pritchard. But Granger only scored higher than he did because she actually took the time to study, whereas Draco simply _knew_ things. And Grahm was an exception to the rule because he was a child prodigy. Only fourteen but already taking classes with the sixth years, Grahm was probably the smartest wizard in the school with the worst reputation among the teachers. He was a little monster in class, as bad alone as the Weasley twins ever were together, and every teacher in the school dreaded their classes with him because, although he was an unholy terror, he knew the answer to every question they used to try and jar him. But none of that mattered to Draco. He was far above Granger and her goody-goody Gryffindor housemates, and he was Grahm's older cousin, not to mention best friend, so any competition between them was purely for the benefit of others (namely their fathers). And all of that meant that there was no plausible reason on Earth for Draco to be trying to escape from someone who should have been beneath his notice.

The fact remained though that he had no other choice but to run. Pansy Parkinson was hell-bent on taking their planned marriage to heart. She truly believed that her father and Draco's father were going to force them to be married whilst Draco knew that the proposal was merely a diversionary promise on his father's part in order to make Mr. Parkinson more amenable to Lucius' authority. And no matter how much Draco complained to Lucius, his father refused to take his moans seriously and simply told him to "deal with her as you would with any female."

Draco grimaced, picking up his pace again. He was a teenage boy, and, as most teenage boys do, he had no problem "dealing with females" as his father so vaguely put it. He'd had his fair share of girlfriends throughout the length of his school career, more than most in fact because of his particularly good looks and the power he wielded as Slytherin's acknowledged leader. But that didn't mean that he wanted to rehash old relationships and give Pansy what she wanted. Frankly, he couldn't stand her anymore. The older she got, the phonier she got. She wasn't anywhere near to the hardness of a Slytherin anymore and he was sick of putting up with her sycophantic attitude. Why did _he_ have to be the one to indulge her fantasies anyway?

"Draco!" Pansy shrieked, interrupting his wandering train of thought. Panicking, Draco darted through the nearest door and pulled it shut behind him looking around desperately for another escape route.

He was in the library. Madam Pince looked up at him from her desk and waggled an admonishing finger at him for making noise. He shrugged and flashed her a disarming smile that (despite the rumors that nothing could melt the old bird's heart) made her forget what he had done wrong and return his grin with a dazed sort of look to her eyes. Draco rolled his own eyes and casually strolled off in search of a certain Gryffindor...

It certainly wasn't Harry Potter and his gang of fawning friends that Draco wanted to run into now, and he took care to refrain from nearing the corner of the library that Granger usually inhabited. The Gryffindor that Draco was looking for was a far-cry from Potter and his toadies. She was, in fact, perfect in every way _except_ for the niggling little part about her being a Gryffindor. He'd spotted her during the Sorting Ceremony earlier that week and instantly fell in lust (Malfoys never fell in love). She was beautiful enough to shame a goddess, tall and willowy with flawless golden skin and dark, expressive eyes. Her thick hair fell in waves of ebony over her shoulders and even her unflattering school robes couldn't conceal her lissome body beneath. Upon studying her during classes the past few days, he'd been delighted to find that she had brains to match her looks. She was clever, funny, and almost as sarcastic as his fellow Slytherins.

In other words, Draco had a major crush on Parvati Patil.

Draco knew that he couldn't do anything serious about it, but he couldn't help how he felt. Logic told him that a Slytherin and a Gryffindor could never hope to be together with the approval of their housemates (let alone his father's), but his emotions didn't seem to care much for his logic. Maybe, he mused to himself, wandering amidst the bookshelves, no one would care if he simply snogged her and didn't make a big deal about it. It'd worked a year ago with his Ravenclaw girlfriend, Mandy Brocklehurst. Of course, she'd never really been his girlfriend. Not unless a month of note-passing and elicit snogging sessions counted as a relationship. He didn't even remember what year she had been! But that was past, and no one had said anything to him about it so maybe it _would_ be okay if he could manage to convince the Gryffindor girl to experience the pleasures that Draco Malfoy could offer her. He grinned. That shouldn't be too big a feat.

So Draco was peering at a group of chatting seventh-years and hoping to catch a glimpse of hair like the night when the door to the library crashed open. "DRACO!" Pansy shouted, probably loud enough to be heard down in the dungeons.

"Shit," Draco muttered, almost but not quite surprised by Pansy's insistence. He quickly spotted a lone girl sitting at the table nearest him and jumped into the chair next to her, grabbing the book from her hands and shielding his face with it. There was the sound of a scuffle near the door which Draco presumed to be Madam Pince trying to force Pansy back outside from the wild shouting and declarations of impending detention that drifted over to his ears. He chuckled to himself in triumph.

"A-hem." The girl cleared her throat and a hand appeared at the top of the book. "I believe this is mine." She tugged the novel from Draco's hands.

For a moment, Draco stared. And impulsively wondered if he'd ever seen such beautiful hair before. It was long and red and appeared so silky that he could barely restrain himself from reaching out to touch it. Draco had a weakness for girls with hair as pretty as his own. Swiftly he examined the rest of the girl. Slender, fair-skinned, light smattering of freckles across her nose, she had nothing on the perfection of Parvati but should things not work out with her... This girl's bright brown eyes were a suitable enough replacement.

And then Draco quite abruptly realized who belonged to the innocently flashing eyes.

"Weasley?" he hissed in surprise. How could he ever have found red hair to be beautiful? Merlin, but he'd let his hormones run away with him this time!

Ginny Weasley arched an eyebrow at him in recognition and angrily set her book down. "Yes, _Malfoy_?" she spat. "Care to explain what's going on?"

Draco shook his head to clear his thoughts. "Oh, go to hell," he replied rudely, overcoming his shock and losing interest. He rolled his eyes carelessly and scooted back in his chair to get up. It was at that instant that he saw Pansy stalking his way. He yelped in surprise and quickly sat down again.

"What're you-" Ginny started to say, but Draco swiftly interrupted her by pulling her into his lap and grabbing her book again.

"Shut up and play along," he commanded, opening the book and pretending it was something interesting. Ginny made a scandalized sound and struggled in his arms, trying to get away. He shot her a look of death that made her eyes widen and she momentarily forgot about escape.

"Draco! I've been looking for you every—who is that!?" Pansy leapt forward as though to seize Ginny by her red hair, but Draco calmly swatted her arm aside. Pansy touched the limb and gritted her teeth. "What are you doing with _her_?" she asked sharply, glaring at his companion.

Draco cocked an eyebrow and gave her a complacent look. "What does it look like, Pansy darling?"

The furious brunette spluttered in an attempt to respond but couldn't seem to make any coherent words come out. Ginny wriggled a bit on Draco's lap and he pinched her leg to make her stop. The Gryffindor stared at him in disgust, and then seemed to get a sudden idea because her eyes lit up and she abruptly smiled, relaxing against his chest. She shot Pansy a coquettish look and raised a hand to finger a piece of Draco hair.

"Why don't you just leave us alone, Parkinson?" she purred, stroking Draco's hair and giving both Slytherins devilish grins. Pansy stared in utter disbelief, her jaw working soundlessly, and Draco found that he wasn't much better off.

"Is that the way it is then, Draco?" Pansy said coldly after visibly collecting herself. He licked his lips and turned away from Ginny's smoldering gaze before he found himself doing something he might regret. Coming to his senses, he nodded shortly.

"Yes. Now, why don't you go leech the life out of someone else's party? Go on," he said, shooing her with a flippant gesture of his hand. Pansy sneered and stubbornly stuck her chin out.

"Just you wait until the others hear about this, Draco. Gryffindor trollops aren't tolerated by anyone in the dungeons, and you know it. After I get done, you'll never be able to show your face down there again!" The incensed Slytherin girl turned on her heel and stalked off in a sanctimonious rage.

Draco sighed in relief. He knew no one would believe anything that came out of Pansy's gossiping mouth. He turned toward Ginny and discovered the Gryffindor's wand leveled evenly at his eyes.

"Let me go," the redhead ordered stiffly, her formerly smoldering eyes now cold as ice. Draco reacted to her demand the only way he knew how.

"Nice show, Weasley," he laughed, shoving her off his lap. Startled at the sudden loss of stability, Ginny tumbled to the floor, her wand clattering out of her reach. She sat there, glaring up at him and trying to straighten her skirt. He threw her an infamous Malfoy smirk and picked up her wand, waving it in her face and pulling it away before she could grab it from him.

"Now, now, what do we say?" he taunted, twirling the wand between his fingers with some skill.

"Give it back," she grated through clenched teeth, holding her palm out. Draco shook his head at her in mock sadness and pocketed the wand.

"Nope, sorry," he replied impudently. "Not until you learn some manners." He winked, and patted his pocket.

"Manners!" Ginny's eyes flashed with malice and she scrambled to her feet. "I'll show _you_ manners, Malfoy." And before Draco could register what had happened, she'd tackled him to the ground.

They wrestled their way across the floor, Ginny trying desperately to reach her wand, and Draco trying hard not to show just how difficult it was for him to fend her off. He'd never been much of a fighter after all, and she fought as dirty as any brawling schoolboy, kicking and punching and threatening to snatch off a fistful off his hair. Finally (and luckily for Draco), they fetched up against a bookshelf where he managed to pin her arms behind her back.

"Merlin, Weasley, what's wrong with you?" he panted, jerking aside as she tried to kick his shins.

"Give me my wand back, Malfoy," she replied, eerily calm for a girl in her position. Draco, sick of how strange she was, narrowed his eyes at her and snarled.

"Why in the blazes should I?"

"Because if you don't, you'll be going straight to the Headmaster, Head Boy or not." It was Madam Pince, standing over them with her hands on her hips. Draco scoffed at her threat, though not quite loudly enough to be heard by anyone. Still... He released Ginny and coolly got to his feet, smoothing his hair back.

"Fine. No problem," he said, mindful to keep his face expressionless. It wouldn't do at all for Ginny to think she'd gotten the better of him after all. He plunged a hand into his pocket and pulled out the object in question. Leaning close to Ginny's face, he held out the wand and whispered viciously, "Here's your fucking wand back. Have fun with it."

Ginny snatched the wand from his fingers and shouldered him aside without response. Draco ignored Madam Pince's glower and frowned, staring after Ginny as she returned to her table for her book. He hadn't known that the Weasel's sister was such a spitfire. But then, reason dictated that if her brother had a temper he couldn't keep a handle on... Oh well, who cared about Weasleys's tempers? Certainly not Draco. He'd gotten what he wanted: Pansy had left him alone.

Shrugging his robes straight, Draco took a moment to run his fingers through his hair and set it back in place. He fixed his crooked Head Boy's pin, flashed the librarian another bewitching smile that made her jump, and sauntered off, back to searching for Parvati.


	2. In a Glance

**Chapter Two: In a Glance**

_"Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?"_

-----

Ginny Weasley was furious as she paced up and down her dormitory floor. How did Malfoy get off thinking he could take advantage of her like that? Why did he always treat everyone as if they meant nothing to him? Was everything simply a game to him? All he seemed to care about was his own precious self, and Merlin help the wizard who raised a finger against him. Why, no one in the entire school dared to except the Gryffindors! Why was that? Couldn't everyone else see what a jumped-up little git he was? And _how on Earth_ had the insufferable brat become Head Boy? She'd obviously missed that memo.

"What's wrong, Ginny?" asked Catherine, looking up from her position of languor on the floor. Catherine, one of Ginny's four roommates, was a sweet, pretty thing with a lilting accent and blue eyes just a bit too large for her face. Ginny had always been grateful for the shorter girl's empathy, but tonight she found that she just could not talk about what had happened in the library. It was too personal, she thought with a frown. Malfoy sparked feelings in her that frightened her to say aloud. After all, she wasn't normally the type of girl who expressed her wishes to choke someone with a necktie until they were blue in the face. And that was the least violent punishment she could think of good enough for the obnoxious Slytherin.

She flopped down onto her bed with a sigh. "Nothing's wrong, Cat. I'm just thinking about some guy."

Right away, she realized it had been the wrong thing to say.

"Oh..." Catherine nodded knowledgeably and peered at her painted fingernails. "I know how that goes."

"Sure you do, Cat," Aubrey, another of Ginny's roommates, said from her chair by the door. Quite the collector of boys herself, Aubrey looked supremely amused by her friend's statement. She was just finishing her own manicure with Catherine's Muggle nail polish as she said, "You haven't had a boyfriend since Matt dumped you back in fourth year."

Catherine narrowed her eyes. "Well, you never know. That might've changed."

Aubrey knew an invitation when she heard it. She leaned forward and capped the nail polish. "Who's the guy?" she asked eagerly. "Come on, Cat. You can tell me!"

Ginny ignored her friends and closed her eyes, but the imprint of Malfoy's smirking face still hovered before her, his gaze teasing and insincere. That's what usually pissed her off so much about Draco Malfoy. He didn't look like he'd ever given a rat's ass about anything except perhaps beating Harry at Quidditch. And why should he? He had his family's reputation to cover almost anything he could ever do wrong and a fortune the size of France to pay for the rest of it. So what if his father was a Deatheater? He never had to worry about his parents not being able to afford his clothes; he never had to worry about not having people around him unwilling to do whatever he wanted; he never had to worry about anything. It just wasn't fair that someone like him – a snotty, selfish, and deceitful spoiled brat – had everything in the world while she had six overprotective brothers and second-hand textbooks and a crush on a boy who'd probably never looked at her twice because he was her _friend_...

"Oh, this is just ridiculous!" she breathed, sitting up. A slight girl with pale green eyes that blinked too much behind her smudged glasses jumped back from where she'd been bent over the bed, about to tap Ginny on the shoulder.

"Sorry, Ella," Ginny apologized. Ella gave her a rare smile and stepped aside so Ginny could stand up.

"What's so ridiculous?" she asked quietly, watching Ginny tug her school robes back on over her clothes.

"Nothing. I was just thinking, is all."

"About a guy," Aubrey put in, snapping her bubblegum loudly. She gave Catherine a meaningful look, but the other girl merely shook her head and looked to Ginny. Ella tilted her head in mystification.

Ginny arched an eyebrow at all three of her friends and decided to change the subject. "Where's Miranda?" she asked, referring to their remaining roommate, a vivacious redhead who could've passed for Ginny's sister if it wasn't for her unmistakable Irish accent. "It's almost dinnertime and she still hasn't given me back my Charms essay."

Aubrey groaned at being furthered denied the details of Ginny's pensiveness, but waved a hand to show she didn't know. Catherine shook her head and stared at the floor absently. Ella shrugged and walked to her own bed and the teetering pile of books waiting for her on her nightstand. Ginny felt a quick surge of relief that they didn't press the subject, and then a wave of anxiety about Miranda.

"Well, how long has she been gone? I promised Professor Flitwick I'd turn that essay in today!" Ginny straightened the sleeves of her robes and rummaged in her trunk for something to tie her hair back. Ella handed her a ribbon, and Ginny gave her friend a grateful smile.

"Oh, not long," Aubrey answered, blowing on her nails to dry them. Frustrated with her efforts, she muttered a quick spell instead and the nails were instantly dry, shiny, and about half an inch longer than usual. "She said she had to go meet someone somewhere."

"Probably a new boyfriend," Catherine snickered, finally getting up from the floor and dusting off her skirt. "You know Miranda."

"Do I," Ginny muttered, thinking of all the boys Miranda had run through in the past six years of school. She'd left the Slytherins alone, but no one else was safe from her seduction. Ginny stopped herself from rolling her eyes, and instead took up her hairbrush, properly combing out her red locks. At least the boy _she_ had a crush on was going to be properly impressed tonight when she finally asked him out. It wasn't Harry whom she'd waited for too long and then become his friend instead (in the end proving to make her a much happier person), but one Colin Creevy. Ginny had decided that Colin was perfect for her. Not only was he her own age, but she also found him strangely attractive with his boyish blonde curls and bright eyes, not to mention that he was fascinating to talk to and had taught her far more about the Muggle world than she'd ever thought she might know. She'd spent most of the summer trying to determine whether she could like him as more than a friend, but when she saw him on the train she knew that she could and did. And now she'd screwed up the nerve to tell him so and nothing was going to stop her.

"So if Miranda's off snogging some new guy," she said, turning around, "You three will just have to tell me how I look."

Aubrey whistled her approval and Ella offered her an encouraging look. Catherine simply smiled and pushed the door open, gesturing for Ginny to go ahead of her. The redhead grinned at her friend's praise, pushed the troubled thoughts of Malfoy out of her head, and focused on Colin Creevy. "Well, come on then. Let's go down to dinner."

-----

Draco left the library in a huff. Parvati hadn't been there and Madam Pince had soon overcome her Malfoy-induced trance when she discovered he wasn't going to sit down and read something. He'd swiftly found himself standing in the hallway with Professor Snape's latest book request in his hands and orders to deliver it to the Potions master right away. He was Head Boy after all, wasn't he? He didn't seem to have anything better to do, did he? He and Snape were very good friends, weren't they?

Draco scoffed impatiently and spun on his heel to stride down the hallway, letting his black cloak billow imperiously out behind him. A small trick he'd picked up from his father, it kept most people from even thinking to bother him. He smiled in satisfaction as a group of second years saw him coming and scurried off to the side of the hallway to let him pass.

"Draco! Hey, Draco!" A gangly Slytherin boy with flyaway blonde hair and strikingly dark eyes darted out of one of the classrooms Draco had just passed. He skipped up to Draco's side and began to walk with him.

"What do you want, Grahm?" Draco sighed, slowing down a bit so that his younger cousin could keep up.

Grahm, ever the faithful friend, shot him a cockeyed grin. "I was just talking to Pansy. You wouldn't believe the stories she's making up about you..."

Draco arched an eyebrow. "What? That I'm snogging the Weasel's sister?"

Grahm looked disappointed. He took childish delight in meddling in his cousin's relationships and hated when someone knew something before he did. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

Draco proceeded to relieve his cousin of his disappointment by recounting what had happened in the library with Pansy and Ginny, carefully leaving out the little wrestling match that had ensued with the Gryffindor. When he'd finished his tale, Grahm let out an appreciative guffaw and leaned against Draco's shoulder, tears of mirth in his eyes.

"Hey, that's a good one, Draco! We should tell Blaise; he'll get a kick out of it. Snogging a Gryffindor... Yeah, right!" Draco nodded distractedly, thinking about Parvati again and worrying that it might not go over quite as well as he thought it might've. "Hey, what's wrong with you, man? You're so serious today." Grahm playfully punched Draco's arm and gave his cousin a curious look. Draco cursed Grahm's strange habit of picking up Muggle habits and wondered yet again why he tolerated it – besides the fact that alienating Grahm meant alienating half the Slytherins who'd come to expect the schemes he and his cousin cooked up together...

Draco sighed again and shook his head. "It's nothing, Grahm. I've just been thinking about things."

"Oh?" Grahm taunted mercilessly, another habit Draco wasn't quite sure why he endured. "Like what?"

"A girl," said a new voice, much deeper than Grahm's developing tenor. Blaise Zabini, a dark-haired seventh-year, joined them in their stroll. "He's thinking about that damn girl again. Who is she, Malfoy?"

Draco sneered at Blaise's careful use of subtlety and ignored his friend's demand. "Why don't you two go on to the Great Hall," he suggested. "I'll meet you there in a minute. I've just got to pass this on to Professor Snape." He indicated the book in his hands and gave them both meaningful looks.

Blaise knew a dismissal when he heard it and sighed in resignation, nodding. "Sure. We'll see you down there then."

"No, wait!" Grahm cried before the boys could go their separate ways. "Come on, Blaise. Let's go with him."

Blaise and Draco both gave the fourteen year-old suspicious looks. "Why?" they asked at the same time.

Grahm grinned fiendishly, seeing that he'd caught their attention. "No reason. I just think that there's something down in the dungeons that you might want to see. And I think you could both use some more of my charming company." The two older boys listened to this deliberately vague explanation and exchanged comprehending glances.

"All right, Grahm," Blaise said. "What have you done now?"

"What?" Grahm replied innocently. "You guys know I would never put a toe out of line."

"Right," Draco agreed, lifting his eyebrows. "Come on, Grahm. Which teacher's wrath should we be avoiding now?"

"Not a teacher's!" Grahm laughed, obviously full of himself. "Let's just head down to the dungeons and you'll see what I mean."

Draco and Blaise followed the younger boy's joyful form, halfway amused by his childlike eagerness and halfway anticipating the prank that Grahm had obviously pulled on some fellow student. Draco smirked, knowing that whatever it was his cousin had arranged undoubtedly had to do with the Gryffindors.

The three friends were just about at the hallway that led to Snape's classroom when an enraged Ron Weasley flew up the stairs with his usual posse in tow. Potter and Granger looked almost as mad as their friend, and all three skittered to a halt in front of Draco, Blaise, and Grahm.

"You little bastard!" Weasley shouted, starting immediately for Grahm with his wand drawn. Mad though they might have been, his friends kept their senses and Potter grabbed the back of Weasley's robes as Granger fought to make him put his wand away. Draco sniggered, seeing what Grahm had done. Weasley's robes were the emerald green and shining silver of Slytherin House, obviously enchanted by the way they shimmered to draw attention to themselves. And the unfortunate victim of Grahm's crime was carrying what looked to be his remaining sets of robes in his arms; all dyed the same brilliant green and silver.

"I never thought I'd live to see the day," Draco laughed, flashing Grahm an approving smile. "The Weasel dressed as a Slytherin harlot." Grahm grinned back at his cousin and folded his arms, beaming in satisfaction and admiring his handiwork.

"Finally realize who rules the school, eh, Weasel?" Blaise added with a smirk. "I knew even you couldn't be so dense as to ignore it forever."

"Shut up, you two," Potter said furiously, holding Weasley back. The fuming redhead was in a blind rage, his face crimson with anger and humiliation, but at least he had stopped trying to get his wand back from Granger. He grated his teeth together audibly and couldn't speak. Beside Draco, Grahm quaked with silent laughter.

"Shut up, you two," Blaise mimicked Harry in mincing tones. He pulled his wand out with a flourish and gave it a nonchalant twirl between his fingers. "Why don't you justify your words, Potter, old boy? Make me."

Draco's eyes flashed to Granger. Her Head Girl pin looked newly polished against the black of her robes. She returned Draco's stare imperviously and deigned not to speak. He knew what she was thinking though. No true Head Boy would ever let his friend stand there and make threats with magic. Amused, he tossed her a disarming grin and drew his own wand. "Come on then, Potter," he goaded without hesitation. "Don't be a wet blanket. We'll give Blaise here his dream of seeing you lose."

"Malfoy!" Granger castigated him, her dark eyes glinting in disapproval.

"Hey, Granger, an enemy's an enemy. Becoming Head Boy doesn't change anything. Why don't you join in the fun, eh?" Draco leered and wasn't surprised when Granger stepped backwards with a distinctly McGonagall-like sniff.

"As if I would stoop so low," she said haughtily. "Come on, Harry. Let's get Ron out of here before he does something we all regret." Potter stood still for a second longer, staring hatefully at the Slytherins, and then turned to follow his bushy-haired friend. Weasley stared even longer than Potter had, until finally he spat on the ground in front of them and hurried off after Potter.

Grahm dissolved into helpless giggles as the Gryffindors fled while Draco and Blaise put up their wands and congratulated each other on another Slytherin triumph. "Did you like it?" Grahm gasped through his laughter. "I created the transfiguration myself. It'll take hours for even McGonagall to figure it out!" He cackled and rubbed his palms together like some madman out of a fairy tale. Draco shook his head and smiled at his too-clever cousin. He'd won them the majority of their bouts of battling with the Gryffindors these past few years, and Draco wasn't above acknowledging that.

"What's the party for?"

The three cohorts spun around to find Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle standing behind them. Crabbe glanced at Goyle with a doubtful shrug. "Sorry. Is it a private party?"

Draco let out a sigh of exasperation and motioned for the two apish boys to join them. "You two should really give more warning to your presence, you know," he told them. They nodded dutifully in response. "Anyway, ask Grahm about it. He'll tell you what's been going on. I've got to go see Professor Snape as it is, and will probably be late to dinner. Blaise!"

Blaise glanced up from the animated conversation he'd just been having with Grahm about their next confrontation with the Gryffindors. He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"Don't wait up. I'll see you all in the Great Hall." Blaise nodded, and, that being said, Draco strode away.

-----

"Hi, Ginny. How were classes today?"

"I'm just glad it's Friday, Harry. Ron, what on Earth happened to your robes?"

Dinner was, as always, a noisy affair at the Gryffindor table. Everyone was in high spirits as befitted the end of the week and a raucous clatter of conversation filled the air (accompanied by the occasional hurled dinner roll). Ginny seated herself across from the seventh years and glanced at her reflection in her silver goblet before looking to her brother for a response. Ron muttered something incoherent and shot a smoldering glare at the Slytherin table. Ginny followed his gaze to find most of the table's occupants pointing and laughing at Ron in his Slytherin get-up.

Harry's mouth twisted into a frown. "Slytherin's genius child decided to bestow some of his precious attention on Ron's wardrobe." The raven-haired boy shook his head wearily. "I wish this war of ours would stop. I can beat them on the Quidditch pitch any day, but when it comes to this type of battle... Pritchard just outdoes us every time." Ron agreed with a woeful nod, plucking at his robes.

"Hermione refuses to put her brains to use in a venture like this, otherwise _we'd_ be winning," the redhead grumbled, giving the cerebrally-blessed girl beside him a dark look. Hermione smiled back sweetly.

Ginny bit her lip and glanced over at the Slytherin table again. The students had calmed down for the most part, and gone back to eating, but there was a definite undercurrent of smugness about all of them. She scanned them through narrowed eyes, but came to a sudden halt when she caught sight of Draco's silver-blonde hair. He looked up with casual grace and their eye abruptly met and held. Ginny found herself wondering just what those icy grey pools might hold within their depths and leaned forward slightly, trying to get a better look. Draco blinked, then turned aside, breaking the spell. Ginny started, then blushed furiously for even looking at the poncy git in the first place. What was wrong with her?

"Hey, Gin." Colin Creevy slid into the seat next to Ginny and picked up a fork. "What's on the menu tonight?"

"Um," Ginny replied eloquently, flustered by her crush's sudden appearance.

"Oh, lasagna! Good. I'm famished." He shoveled a huge serving onto his plate and dug in, rapidly making the food disappear. Ginny watched him eat, momentarily at a loss for words as she wondered at the ability of teenage boys to eat so much and remain so skinny. Then she realized she was staring and remembered what she meant to do tonight.

"Say, Colin..." she began tentatively.

"Mmf." Colin wiped his mouth on his napkin and looked up from his half-empty plate. "Yeah? What's up?"

"I..." She wished she'd planned this out a little better. Shoving her own plate aside, she leaned her elbows on the table and tugged anxiously on her sleeve. "I wanted to tell you something."

Colin gave her an impulsive grin causing her to momentarily lose it as she marveled at the way his whole face lit up. "Anything," he smiled. "Fire away."

She tried to return the smile. "It's just that I was thinking a lot this summer. About you. And me..." She let this suggestion hang, but Colin only looked at her blankly. "Well, I was thinking about all the great times we've had together and everything and I guess I was wondering... I mean... Would you like to go out with me sometime?"

Colin appeared astonished. "Oh, Ginny..." he said, his surprise quickly fading into pity. "I thought maybe Catherine had already told you." He sighed, and squeezed her hand in sympathy. 'Sorry, Gin. I like you a lot and all, but Cat and I have been dating since the beginning of the summer." He shrugged apologetically. "Our families go to the same beach for vacation and we just... Well, you know..." Seeing her mortified look, he added (unhelpfully), "I love you like a sister though. We can still be friends."

Feeling unaccountably humiliated, Ginny got up from the table. "Oh, it's alright," she mumbled. "I didn't really expect..." Colin was looking at her helplessly and she found she couldn't finish her words. "I have to go. Homework." And she darted off.

Colin turned back to his food, confused and a bit ashamed by his fumbling of that whole situation. Catherine spotted him from down the table a ways and rushed over to fill Ginny's empty seat. Seeing his look, she immediately asked him what was wrong.

"Nothing," he sighed.

Harry shook his head, having witnessed the entire incident. "Ginny asked him out," he explained quietly. Catherine gasped and stared off in the direction that her roommate had run as Colin bit his lip.

"I didn't mean to hurt her," he told Harry glumly. "Do you think I hurt her?" Harry looked unusually troubled, but didn't reply.

-----

Ginny was in the hallway right outside the Great Hall when she stopped running. She slouched against the wall and dug the heels of her palms into her eyes to keep herself from crying. She should've known better; she shouldn't have expected anything to come out of this; she shouldn't have..! But she had. She had expected something to come out of it, even if her parents technically still wouldn't let her date, and it just didn't seem fair that her friend had gotten to Colin first. It didn't seem fair. Why couldn't something nice ever happen to her?

Removing her hands and slowly opening her eyes, she was about to emit a woeful sigh, but she quickly stifled herself when she recognized the person coming out of the Great Hall. It was Draco Malfoy, and, for some inane reason, he was in a passion of conversation with Parvati Patil. Ginny couldn't quite hear the words but he seemed to be taking himself very seriously from his fervent hand gestures and earnest facial expression. Parvati listened with a small frown. They stopped next to the staircase and Draco smiled, obviously waiting for the answer to some posed question. Suddenly Parvati shook her head and laughed, drawing the wand from her robes. She said something that made him start up angrily, but Parvati waved her wand in warning and he subsided with a grimace. Then she spun on her heel and left, still chuckling softly. Ginny was off and sprinting down the hallway before Draco could spot her and take out whatever anger he had now on her. She wasn't too sure what she had just witnessed and she wasn't sticking around to find out.

By the time she'd reached Gryffindor Tower, Ginny had forgotten all about Draco again and was wallowing in self-pity. She paced the Common Room, trying to figure out what to do with herself and wondering where she should go before everyone else got back from dinner because there was no way in hell that she was going to stick around and listen to their sympathy.

And then she spotted a shimmering something draped across one of the armchairs by the fireplace. She sidled over and picked up Harry's Invisibility Cloak with a small gasp. He must have been terribly distracted to leave it lying out in the open because Harry usually took very good care of his cloak.

Clutching the silken piece of fabric to her chest, Ginny quite suddenly got an idea. She didn't want to just sit around here and wait to be scooped up by an overeager friend who was convinced she needed cheering up. Where, though, could she go to escape that, for tonight at the very least? She'd overheard her brothers talking about an underground student's bar in Hogsmeade once upon a time... Perhaps getting drunk and forgetting this evening's pain wouldn't be a horrible alternative. After all, her brothers hadn't gone there just to party. She could still remember George's arm slung around Fred's shoulder as they stumbled up the stairs last year the morning after Angelina had dumped Fred for Lee Jordan. Yes, perhaps she should go and find out just what alcohol could do for a person. And screw the consequences. She couldn't be her mother's little girl forever.

Firm in her resolution, Ginny swung Harry's cloak over her shoulders and pulled up the hood, hurrying off to search for the statue she knew would lead her to Hogsmeade.

_A/N: Infinite gratitude is due to my brother for brainstorming with me, my lovely babyducke for beta-ing, and my good friend Kelsey for brainstorming **and** beta-ing._


	3. In a Kiss

_A/N: In which both main characters get spectacularly drunk..._

****

**Chapter Three: In a Kiss**

_"Come, he hath hid himself among these trees to be consorted with the humorous night: Blind is his love and best befits the dark."_

-----

The Drowned Rat was not a place that Draco Malfoy normally frequented. The low-class pub and nightclub didn't stock his favorite whiskey and always seemed to be crowded with the kind of people he was forbidden to associate with; however, it also happened to be the only establishment within a reasonable distance from the school that would sell underage wizards alcohol. Created some hundreds of years ago by thoughtful locals, the Drowned Rat had always had good business and was still in no danger of being shut down by any complaining Hogwarts faculty. As long as it stayed that way, Draco intended to take advantage of its opportunities. After all, he wasn't about to waltz into the strip club around the corner and expect no punishment, even if he _was_ a Malfoy.

And, as his misery dictated, his name was the very thing that held the whiskey glass in his hand tonight.

"I still can't believe it," the blonde muttered to himself, shaking his head. "_No one_ turns down a Malfoy." The sour-faced bartender wiping down the counter paused to give him a suspicious glance, but Draco turned his head and pushed his empty glass forward. Grunting, the bartender left his rag on the countertop and reached for a bottle of whiskey to fill Draco's glass.

"Hard times, mate?" Blaise Zabini asked amiably, having just sauntered up to the counter. Draco gave his fellow Slytherin a baleful look and took the proffered glass from the bartender's hand. "That bad, eh?" continued Blaise with a smile. He leaned against the bar and ran a hand through his hair. Draco resolved to hold his tongue and sipped at his whiskey.

Blaise shook his head and grinned in the wake of his friend's silence. "You took my advice then?" he drove on. "You talked to the girl?" Draco had been driving Blaise batty with his endless day-dreaming and he figured the only way to get his friend back was to at least make him confront the object of his desire.

Draco mumbled something noncommittal in reply to Blaise's inquiry. Blaise's dark eyes flashed with a thousand and one prepared taunts as he said somewhat-triumphantly and somewhat-exasperatedly, "So, you couldn't screw your nerve up after all."

"No!" Draco slammed his glass down, and the whiskey in it leapt up and sloshed onto the counter. The bartender started and the crystal goblet he'd been cleaning slipped from his momentarily nerveless fingers to crash against the floor with the resounding sound of breaking glass. Several people sitting at the bar turned to stare at the irate Slytherin. "That's just it! I asked her to go out with me, and she turned me down!"

Blaise gave Draco a wide-eyed look of incredulity, his eyebrows in danger of disappearing into his hairline. "You're kidding," he said. "She turned _you_ down?" Suddenly he burst into gales of laughter.

Overcoming his fit of anger, Draco narrowed his eyes and nodded shortly, draining the remainder of his whiskey so that he wouldn't have to watch his best friend laugh his ass off at Draco's expense. Blaise only laughed harder. "You, the prince of Slytherin himself? Who _is_ this girl? She's gotta be one hell of a chick to turn _you_ down!"

"Oh, shut up, Zabini," Draco muttered. He eyed the sullen bartender, now sweeping up the shards of the goblet, and waggled his empty glass under the man's nose. "Well? What am I paying you for?" The man let his broom clatter to the floor and bared his yellow teeth at Draco in the semblance of a smile as he pulled out the whiskey bottle and took Draco's glass.

Blaise snorted derisively. "Come now, Malfoy. You must admit that it is a _tad_ bit funny. This has got to be the first time in your life that anyone at school has ever said no to you." He paused. "Besides Harry Potter, of course."

"Yes. Thank you very much for reminding me," Draco snapped. He snatched the half-filled glass from the bartender and began to gulp whiskey, wincing as he swallowed. Patil and Potter, they were all the same. No Gryffindor seemed to have any taste.

"Oh ye of little faith... Look, Draco, just because this girl didn't lay her soul at your feet like most females do, it doesn't mean you've lost your touch!"

"You think I care about that, Blaise?" Draco eyed his friend briefly in disdain before grabbing the bottle from the bartender and pouring his own glass full. The man's eye twitched a moment, and then he took a deep breath and bent to pick up his broom. This was his last day of work before a much-needed vacation, and then he would be through dealing with pretentious teenagers.

"Well, what are you mad about, then? Your name still holds weight among the rest of the wizarding world, Draco; who cares what one girl rejected? She's a fool, and most likely doesn't deserve you. I just think that-" Blaise stopped, and stared at Draco chugging his whiskey with a grimace on his face. "Mate, you are going to kill yourself drinking like that. Bartender-" He turned to the man who snapped around a little too fast, his eye twitching visibly this time. "Bartender, two shots of tequila. And keep them coming." The bartender moved slowly to do his bidding. "Come on, we haven't got all day!" A murderous gleam shone in the man's eyes as he thumped a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses down on the counter.

"Tequila, Zabini? I don't want that. The whiskey is fine, believe me."

The bartender made to take one of the shot glasses away, but Blaise smacked his hand away.

"No, it's not. Leave that alone and drink this instead." He pushed the whiskey bottle resting on the counter away (causing the bartender to scramble in order to catch the bottle before it slid right off the newly washed surface) and nudged a shot glass in Draco's direction.

Draco stared at the glass. "What am I supposed to do with this? It's empty."

Blaise rolled his eyes. "Hey, bartender! Do you want to lose your job? Fill up this man's glass!"

The bartender stood behind the counter, clutching the bottle of half-gone whiskey in his arms, and staring at Blaise and Draco in homicidal rage. "That is IT!" he said loudly. He dropped the bottle and it smashed on the floor, glass and liquid flying in all directions. "I've had it with you self-righteous kids! I'm not a slave, you know! I may be a squib, and unfit for much else than this kind of work, but, Merlin, isn't there a bone of decency in you people?! I've had it! I'm leaving! Pour your own damn drinks!" And with that declaration, he whipped off his apron, jammed a hat on his head, and stalked out the door. The dwarf managing the exit ran after him calling, "Get back here, Floyd! Your shift's not over until midnight and I need more help...!" His voice faded off into the distance as it became apparent that Floyd had genuinely 'had it.'

For a moment, the entire bar was silent, then someone began to laugh, and soon, everyone went back to what he or she was doing.

"See that? Did you see that?" Draco bowed his head in despair. "Even total strangers have no respect for my authority! Admittedly he didn't necessarily know that I was a Malfoy but still, it just doesn't seem fair." He trailed off, mumbling to himself in dejection.

Blaise shrugged. "Here." He poured Draco a shot of tequila and handed him a lime. "Drink up," he ordered, pouring his own shot and salting the edge of his hand.

Draco looked sideways at Blaise. 'Why do I ever listen to you?" He grabbed the shot glass, tossed the tequila down his throat, and bit into the lime. "Mmm, not bad." He licked his lips and peered thoughtfully at the fruit.

Blaise rolled his eyes again as he downed his own shot. "What you need, Draco," he said upon finishing his drink, "is a little cheering up. Here." He set a stack of coins on the counter. "Have a few drinks on me. I'm going to go find you a one-night stand."

"A girl? Blaise, I don't really-" But the other boy was gone before he could finish the thought. Draco sighed, and Parvati's face flashed through his mind. _It's only a schoolboy crush_, he scoffed in his mind. _She's not worth my time_.

But the truth was that she had mortally wounded his pride. And pride was everything to a Slytherin, not to mention a Malfoy. What would his father say if he ever found out about this?

"He won't find out. No one has to know." Draco nodded his affirmation and poured himself another shot of tequila. And if that didn't work, well, he would just have to drown his troubles until _he_ forgot about them, too.

-----

It took Ginny almost an hour to get to Hogsmeade. She'd nearly forgotten the location of the one-eyed witch statue, and hadn't been aware of just how long the tunnel leading to Honeydukes' basement was. As she emerged into the lamp lit streets of Hogsmeade, she breathed in the night air and tasted freedom. Suddenly anything seemed possible.

At first, Ginny had been a bit apprehensive about her decision. She'd lingered in the tunnel, wondering if her venture was worth it, but all it had taken was her thoughts straying back to Colin for her resolve to return. She didn't care what happened to her tonight, as long as she didn't remember it. And – straightening her dusty clothes and making sure that Harry's Invisibility Cloak was tucked safely into her satchel – she set off to find the one place that she was sure could take care of her memory.

The Drowned Rat was, of course, an underground operation. Ginny had to push her way through the throng of patrons in a respectable pub called the Prince's Haven to get to the entrance of the Drowned Rat. A dwarf was standing in the corner of the Haven, looking surly, and clutching a purple bag in one hand. Ginny tentatively approached him.

"Uh, excuse me?" she began, unsure of whether she'd found the right place.

"Yeah?" the dwarf gruffly replied, peering up at her out of two strangely glittering black eyes.

"I, um, want a table in the back," she said quickly, giving him the words her brothers had mentioned as the ticket in. "Crowds disturb me."

"Is that so?" The dwarf eyed her up and down for a moment. "You're awfully young, missy."

Ginny pulled back. "Sorry? Isn't sixteen old enough?" Her nerves abruptly calmed, and her temper flared before she could control it.

The small man chuckled. "Of course, darlin'. But there's no magic allowed in the back room. Just give old Dane here your wand, and you're all set." He held out the purple bag.

Ginny bit her lip and slipped her wand into the bag before she could think too much about it. After all, her brothers had boasted about coming here hundreds of times. Why should she hesitate?

Dane closed his hands over the top of the bag as soon as the wand slipped inside. He leered alarmingly and waved a hand at the open door behind him. Ginny blinked. Surely that door had not been there a moment before..? But that hardly mattered. She shouldered her bag decisively – clutching it to make sure of the Invisibility Cloak's presence within – and started forward into the adjacent room.

Her first reaction to the Drowned Rat was noise, and lots of it.

_There must be some set of silencing wards on this place_, she mused as she edged along the wall, trying not to draw any attention to herself. It wasn't hard. The pub was chock full of teenagers too distracted for any number of reasons to take notice of the petite redhead. Tables crowding the room were full of people who held aloft drinks and yelled at people across the room, only to laugh when they couldn't hear the response. An enchanted radio was blasting music onto a small but packed dance floor. Teenage couples seemed to have claimed every spare corner of the place, unashamedly exploring each other's bodies without much thought to decency.

Out of nowhere, a strange young man was quite suddenly standing at her side.

"Hey, beautiful," he crooned, voice more than a bit slurred. "Wanna dance?"

Before Ginny had a chance to respond, a girl waltzed up with two cloaks in her arms. "Come on, Marty," she sighed, grabbing the boy's arm. "It's time to go." The boy made his unenthusiastic opinion on this idea be heard (if ineloquently) but his companion only rolled her eyes and dragged him off to what looked to be another door at the end of the crowded bar. Ginny, whose cheeks were still a bit red from the unexpected encounter, noted the door as the exit and made her way across the rest of the pub to find herself an empty stool at the bar.

"What'll it be, honey?" the voluptuous woman behind the counter asked, leaning toward Ginny as she pushed her bag under her stool and tugged out her leather-bound journal, a quill, and a red ink bottle. Ginny glanced at the woman, still slightly terrified by her situation, and responded quickly with the decision she'd come up with back in the tunnel. It had to be something that she would feel, but not necessarily taste.

"Vodka," she said quietly, roaming in her pocket for coins. The woman eyed her money, eyed Ginny, and then reached behind her for a shot glass and a tall bottle full of clear liquid.

Ginny nodded her thanks as the woman poured her share and left, off to check on her other customers. Ginny watched her go, then downed the shot and closed her eyes. It was cool going down but burned at the end, not an altogether unpleasant sensation. It felt strangely freeing for her to be able to sit here, drinking whatever she liked, with no one to tell her otherwise. Normally this would be the moment at which her mother or some older brother would come charging into the room to ruin whatever experiment she happened to be in the middle of. For once, it felt nice to be ignored.

She set the small shot glass aside and opened up her journal. Writing held a uniquely cleansing quality for Ginny; it always had, even despite the whole Tom Riddle incident in her first year at Hogwarts. Writing made all of her problems disappear - if only for a time - and she could control how her life turned out on paper at the very least.

Dipping her quill into the bottle of red ink, Ginny let the first drops of ink stain the page. Red was always her ink of choice; it reflected her way of thinking that writing was baring her soul; she was writing in crimson blood the words that made up her life. Watching the red drops mar the perfection of the white paper, Ginny smiled. She was beginning to feel better already.

-----

Draco was having a hard time remembering exactly how many drinks he'd had. He could remember returning to the bar in between the dances with all the strange girls Blaise kept introducing him to, but he'd stopped consciously counting drinks after his third shot of tequila. Now, as he came back to the bar again, out of breath with laughter, and leading his present dance partner by the hand, he suddenly noticed that the woman behind the counter didn't seem to be giving him any more alcohol. She was giving him an impatient look, saying something about a drink limit after eleven o'clock.

Draco gave the girl beside him a quick and careless kiss before shoving her back out on the dance floor. "Be there in a minute!" he told her, as she gave him a slightly injured look. "I just hafta take care of this loony first..." He swung back around to stare at the bartender and pounded a fist on the counter, making empty glasses rattle. "Now, what do you mean, _no more drinks_?"

"Just what I said, Mr. Malfoy," she said waspishly, her lips pursed in irritation. "You're not allowed any more drinks. You've reached your limit." The hateful woman removed Draco's glass from the counter and gave him a bland look that told him to bugger off. If she hadn't been so nice-looking, Draco might've let loose the string of blasphemies threatening to leave his lips.

"But!" he spluttered instead, searching for an argument. The sudden thought came to him that if he claimed he was a Malfoy, it wouldn't get him far, although he couldn't quite think why that should be. A Malfoy got everything he demanded.

"Draco, there you are! Aileen says you told her—hey, what's going on?" Blaise stared at the woman holding Draco's empty glass, then at Draco who was standing there with his mouth open but no noise coming out.

"He's reached his drink limit," the bartender explained flatly, as she turned to go attend to her other patrons. Draco closed his mouth with a glare, and made a move to go after her but Blaise restrained him.

"You know, she's probably right, Malfoy. How many drinks have you had tonight?" Draco didn't answer the pointless question; the bartender had gone down to the far end of the bar, and Draco's gaze had been drawn to a girl who was sitting there scribbling furiously away in a notebook with one hand and sipping from a small glass of vodka with the other hand. She looked strangely familiar, but he couldn't quite place her as her head was bent and he couldn't see her face.

The dark-haired boy beside him glanced down at his wristwatch and swore loudly. "It's getting late. Hey!" Blaise snapped a finger in Draco's face. The blonde looked at his friend, startled. "We should go. Come on, get your cloak. I'll just fetch Grahm and we'll head back."

Draco watched Blaise wriggle his way back onto the dance floor and wondered briefly how long Grahm had been there. He couldn't remember his cousin's presence at all. Shrugging it off, he resumed his stare at the redhead still scrawling away in her notebook. She looked up as the bartender approached with a bottle to refill her glass and Draco finally got a good look at her face.

"Weasley!" he whispered to himself in shock, laughing a bit. Ginny went back to her writing, so intent on her quill that she didn't notice the people hovering over her shoulders, trying to see what it was she wrote. A few stray strands of red hair fell in her eyes and she impatiently brushed them aside. Draco tilted his head, and stared, watching carefully as she dipped her quill into a bottle of red ink and bit her lip in concentration as she began to write again. He wondered what could be so engrossing a subject that she was oblivious to the world around her.

An idea came to him then that he could prove his Malfoy heritage by being the first to find out just what she was writing about, and he got up to go show those people that _he_ could take her attention away from her words. Just then, Blaise showed up again, Grahm in tow. The younger Slytherin was smiling and waving at a group of giggling girls sitting together at a nearby table. They waved back and threw kisses at him. Blaise rolled his eyes and motioned to Draco.

"Ready?" he asked wearily. "We have to get out of here before Grahm finds himself yet another girlfriend." Grahm grinned and shoved the bangs out of his eyes.

"You're just jealous because you don't have a girlfriend," he told Blaise impudently, sticking out his tongue. Blaise's dark eyes flared to life.

"I do so," he retorted. "Jaclyn's going out with me." Those eyes dared Grahm to say more, but Grahm didn't heed the warning.

"I meant a _proper _girlfriend, Zabini. Not some Mudblood whore." His mouth twisted in distaste.

"She's as Slytherin as you or I!" Blaise cried, defending said girlfriend's honor. Jaclyn Matoski was indeed a Slytherin, a prefect in fact, but in Draco's circle, it was Pureblood or nothing, and Blaise was forever receiving flak for falling outside of that. Grahm chose the wrong night to provoke him however, and when he snorted in reply to Blaise's statement, Blaise tackled him to the ground.

Draco ignored the minor fistfight (they would make up; they always did), and slipped off. The people surrounding Ginny began to leave, heading over to the growing crowd around the two warring Slytherins, and Draco smiled to himself. He approached the Gryffindor girl from behind, and leaned over her shoulder. She took no notice of him, so absorbed was she in her task, and he had a chance to read her words. Unfortunately, Ginny's handwriting wasn't quite as neat as his own practiced cursive, and he couldn't make out most of it. He scanned the page, disappointment rising in him, when a word abruptly caught him off-guard. It was his name, Draco, written there in her slanting red handwriting for all to see. He pulled back in astonishment and stared at her curiously. She was writing about _him_? She was using his _first_ name? That was certainly a surprise, not to mention he hadn't thought the subject of him alone could elicit so much concentration on her part.

He leaned over her again, trying to see what the rest of it said, when she jumped and turned to face him.

"Malfoy?" she asked, looking a bit dazed.

He never knew what made him do it. Weeks later, he still pondered his motives. Perhaps it was his surprise that she could think about him hard enough to lose interest in the world around her; perhaps it was the way she looked so startled by his appearance, her lips half-parted and her brown eyes wide and questioning; perhaps it was simply the amount of alcohol racing through his veins which was definitely enough to make him do the most un-Draco-like things. Whatever the motivation, the sudden urge to kiss this innocently pretty girl sitting in front of him overtook his mind, and he darted forward to press his lips against hers with all the force that he possessed.

-----

Ginny's eyes flew wide open and her hands rose to push Draco away, but he had her firmly by the shoulders and refused to let her go. Slowly, Ginny began to realize that she was being very thoroughly kissed by someone who definitely knew how to very thoroughly kiss. Despite herself, she responded, and her hands dropped to rest on his arms, her chin tilting up toward him. A rush of adrenaline pulsed through her body, making her feel as though she were snared in some strange sort of whirlpool, drowning without a wish to be saved. All her thoughts were caught up in Draco as she tasted the ice and lime and bitter salt of his mouth. The kiss held passion without the fury she'd expected from someone like Draco Malfoy.

Quite abruptly, as though some spell had been broken, the two pulled away from each other. Their startled gazes found each other and locked on. Ginny focused on Draco's eyes – grey eyes shining with an odd fever – and felt light-headed as her lips continued to tingle from his electric touch.

"Come on, Drakey. Let the girl go. It's time to go home." Blaise's aggravated voice sliced through their silent stupefaction. Draco turned around, vaguely surprised to see Blaise and Grahm striding toward him, but Ginny quickly came to her muddled senses and ducked her head in humiliation, cramming her things into her bag and rushing for the door. She was taking her wand back from the dwarf at the door, when Draco caught up with her.

"Let's run away," he whispered with an underlying note of anxiety in his voice. His fingers trembled with excitement as he seized her hand. Ginny looked up at him as he took his own wand from the dwarf and found her picture of him as the heartless Slytherin leader melting away as she took in his disheveled silver-blonde hair and unnaturally shining eyes. Now he was merely Draco, the boy who'd kissed her when everything else in her world was wrong.

"Draco!" It was Blaise and Grahm, still looking for their friend after he'd abandoned them. Draco shot her a distraught look. Ginny felt panic rising in her, then registered with faint incredulity the distress in Draco's face, and couldn't stand the thought of their accidental meeting ending this way.

"Okay," she whispered back, lacing her fingers through his.

A genuine grin spread across the Slytherin's face as he nodded and pushed the door open. Ginny giggled helplessly as they fled the Drowned Rat together, running down the alleyway they'd emerged into and then turning to race down Hogsmeade's empty streets. Their feet pounded painfully on the cobblestones and their hair was whipped about by the wind as they ran, but Ginny hardly noticed. A heady euphoria had taken control of her mind, and she didn't notice the small voice in her head protesting her actions either. Vehemently, the little voice was informing her that Draco was a Slytherin, and more than that, a Malfoy, and she had no reason to trust him. _He stole your wand_, the little voice hissed. _You hate him. He's a spoiled brat with a fat head_. But a larger voice overrode that mentality, too drunk and inexplicably happy with the fire she'd seen in Draco's eyes, and the fearful eagerness she'd felt in his embrace. She'd never seen him smile like that at anyone, and it made her feel extraordinarily sublime in a way she couldn't quite slow her thoughts down enough to comprehend.

-----

"Malfoy!"

Draco cursed good-naturedly as he spared a moment to look over his shoulder and spot his fellow Slytherins running after him and Ginny. It was nice and strange at the same time to have friends so concerned for him. He tugged on Ginny's hand and they pelted down a side street, both giggling madly and gasping for breath. Draco was full of an odd lightness he'd never felt in anyone else's company. A Malfoy did not run around in the middle of the night, drunk, escaping from friends, and holding the hand of a girl who should have been one of his mortal enemies. He felt free from all restrictions and shouted aloud in exultation at the white moon, hanging low in the sky.

Ginny pulled him down another alley, and began whispering something incoherent.

"Stop, Draco," she was saying through her immutable laughter. "We'll get caught! Stop shouting."

He stopped and stared at her, trying to see her face in the darkness. Her giggles halted as her breathing slowed and she leaned back against the building beside them. He thought maybe she was blushing, but he couldn't tell.

"_Lumos!_" he mumbled, holding his wand out. Ginny blinked owlishly at him, and held her hands up over her eyes. Draco smiled; she _was_ blushing. He let the light from his wand fade and hastened forward to kiss her again. This time, Ginny responded immediately, her fingers knotting in his hair and pulling him forward, toward her, almost painfully. Draco let her as the kiss was too good to stop. Ginny kissed like no one he knew: with all of herself. She held nothing back like a Slytherin would. Draco felt it only right that he return the favor and he pressed nearer, closing the space between them with his body. Ginny tasted like vodka, but beneath that was something unexpected, like the tang of dark chocolate – a forbidden richness.

"Draco?" Grahm's hesitant voice drifted unwanted into their ears. The two teenagers sprang apart and gave each other panicked looks. Then Ginny dissolved into giggles again.

"Here," she whispered softly. "Hold still." She drew a swath of shimmering fabric from her bag and shook it out.

"Is that—" Draco started loudly, incredulous.

"Shh!" Ginny commanded him with a smile. She swung the Invisibility Cloak over their heads and pushed Draco up against the wall so that they were standing side by side.

"Draco?" Grahm asked again, and the two runaways saw his light appear at the entrance to their alleyway.

"I know I saw them head this way." And that was Blaise. They watched the two Slytherins creep down the alley with their wands held in front of them. Grahm shivered violently without a cloak, and his light bobbed up and down crazily. It shone in Draco's eyes and he glanced at Ginny with another frantic look. Ginny seemed unruffled.

"They can't see us!" Draco realized with a whisper. He giggled behind his hands like a giddy child with a secret.

Ginny punched his shoulder. "Shut up!" she hissed. "Do you wanna get caught?" But she was laughing too, her shoulders shaking as she leaned against Draco for support.

"Shh! Did you hear that?" Blaise stopped in his tracks about ten feet away from them and swiveled his head around, trying to pinpoint their laughter. Draco grinned wickedly and covered Ginny's mouth with his hand. The grin widened when she made a muffled sound of outrage and clapped her own hand over his mouth. They stood still as statues that way until the two boys finally shrugged and gave up, walking away.

Draco let out a long breath of relief against Ginny's palm, and yelped when she reacted by biting his hand. He pulled the injured member away and blew on it, shooting her a hurt look. The cloak slipped to their shoulders and Ginny gave him an amused smile.

"You're rather jumpy, Malfoy," she said softly.

Draco stuck his tongue out at her rather childishly. "You make me jumpy," he said, unintentionally slurring his words. Ginny giggled again and smoothed the hair from his face in an oddly tender gesture.

"Come on, Head Boy" she said, eyes dancing in excitement as she pulled the cloak back up over their heads. "I know where we can be alone."

-----

Draco didn't question it when he found himself in the basement of Honeydukes three hours later having an actual conversation with Ginny Weasley. He smiled as he finished a story, and waited to hear Ginny's comment.

"I can't believe you did that!" Ginny cried, laughing aloud. Draco had come to like the sound of her laughter very much in the space of the past few hours. It had a pleasant cadence akin to falling water that made him want to listen to it, quite unlike Pansy's high fluty laugh or Blaise's masked chuckle. "You really asked Dumbledore to change your House's colors?"

"Well, I hate green!" Draco explained with a grimace. "All of Malfoy Manor is decorated in green. Harry Potter's _eyes_ are green. I'm sick of green! Leave green to the Irish!" Ginny laughed even harder at the expression of righteous madness on Draco's face.

"I suppose," she finally grinned in agreement.

The two lapsed into a comfortable silence. Draco wondered at the strangeness of it all. Ginny wasn't just a Gryffindor and a Weasley, she was also a year younger than him and a girl, but somehow he found it easier to talk to her than any of his so-called friends. He'd told her things tonight he'd never even think about telling anyone else and she understood his thoughts so readily that it almost scared him.

Ginny stood from where she'd been seated on an overturned crate, and approached Draco with certain apprehension in her gaze. "What if we don't remember this in the morning?" she said gravely, reaching up to touch his cheek.

Draco eyed the stolen bottle of whiskey sitting three-quarters empty on the floor and didn't comment. He'd just been trying to remember a time when he felt happier than he did right now, and he didn't want reasonable thought interfering with that. "So what?" he replied softly, and moved to kiss her again. Ginny returned the kiss with a measure of desperation she was trying not to feel, but Draco ignored that too, pulling her closer so that he could erase the doubt from her mind. Ginny tripped over the whiskey bottle as she stepped toward him, and she fell forward with a shriek, knocking Draco over too so that they ended up on the floor in a heap of tangled limbs, laughing crazily in their inebriated state.

Smiling, Ginny stared up at the ceiling and wondered aloud, "Draco, why is it that we've known each other for all these years and never _talked_?"

Draco turned on his side to face her. "Well, that's easy," he said, waving his hands about in explanation. "You're a Measley, and I'm a Walfoy. Wait..." He blinked as Ginny began to laugh so hard that tears came to her eyes. "No, that's not right."

As her laughter waned, Ginny edged closer to Draco and snuggled her head against his chest. "Oh, who cares?" she whispered drowsily, closing her eyes.

Draco barely registered surprise when he realized she'd promptly fallen to sleep. He stared at her contentedly slumbering form curled around his own, and merely smiled. He truly couldn't remember being happier, alcohol or not. And as his eyes slowly drifted shut, he let himself dream that maybe someday he'd feel that happy all the time.


	4. In Consequence

_A/N: Denial's not just a river, you know..._

****

**Chapter Four: In Consequence**

_"Where the devil should this Romeo be – came he not home tonight?"_

**-----**

Draco was having an absurd dream about kissing Ginny Weasley and _liking_ it, when he awoke to the sound of voices above him. Confused, his head aching horribly for some reason that he couldn't quite fathom, he squinted one grey eye open. And gave a strangled scream of horror when he realized that he was lying in a dark basement with one of Ginny Weasley's hands resting on his chest.

He leapt to his feet like a singed cat and began to frantically question himself. "I didn't—we didn't—this isn't—" And then he bent over double with a moan of pain. "Urgh… My head…"

Luckily for him, along with the rush of hangover aching, Draco had also managed to remember exactly what had happened the night before. He slowly sat himself on the ground and dropped his head into his hands with a very heartfelt groan of despair and another wince of pain. _This is awful, this is terrible, this is— _

His eyes caught Ginny's still-sleeping form. She had rolled over when Draco jumped up and her arms were wrapped tight across her chest in an attempt to keep herself warm without him next to her. Quite suddenly, Draco began to remember something else about last night. He remembered happiness, wonderfully buoyant happiness that had made him feel as though he need never return to the rest of the world as long as Ginny was with him. She had made him forget about his troubles with Parvati, made him forget the woeful parts of being Lucius Malfoy's only son, and made him forget the expectations of his House and his peers.

Not to say that Draco had been an unhappy person before he had met with Ginny last night. Draco shook his head forcefully and almost cried with the pain it brought. Well, okay, maybe he had been unhappy and hadn't even known it. It just seemed that now, the thought of going back to Hogwarts and facing all those everyday struggles without this balance of happiness that he had unexpectedly found in her, was practically unbearable.

He looked at Ginny again. Why was this suddenly happening to him? He didn't need her, she was a Weasley, and a Gryffindor, and, above all, a girl, and he had never needed _anyone_ to keep him happy. He glared at her freckles and red hair and fumed at the voice in his head that was trying to remind him what it had been like to kiss her. _Remember, _it taunted him jeeringly, _that delicious taste, that electric feeling of rightness, those fiery lips pressed against your own? _Draco swiped the air with an angry hand; he did not want to remember. But, against his will, he was remembering. And he didn't only remember the kissing. He remembered them talking. They had talked for what seemed like hours about each other and love and life in general and it had been fantastic conversation. He remembered them having more in common than ought to have been possible. He especially remembered how they had agreed that to be shot down callously by someone – when they were being the brave ones by talking to them in the first place! – was really quite unfair. To put it mildly.

Draco groaned again. _This_ was unfair. _He_ shouldn't feel the need for a connection with this girl and _she_ shouldn't be able to wield this kind of power over his thoughts when she was just _sleeping_.

The voices overhead suddenly grew loud enough for him to hear.

"…and two more crates of Chocolate Frogs! We've run out again!"

"All right, all right! Keep your shirt on."

And then, he heard heavy footsteps and the sound of a door opening. A thick shaft of yellow light sliced into the relative darkness of the basement. Panicking, Draco scrambled to Ginny's side and shook her shoulder.

"Wake up!" he hissed. "We have to get out of here!"

The Gryffindor shrugged off his touch and asked, "Get out of w-w-where?" with a yawn, her eyes blinking rather groggily.

"This basement!" Draco fell to searching for his cloak, which he couldn't find for some odd reason.

"Basement?" Draco stopped to look at Ginny because of the sharpness in her tone. He saw her eyes widen in remembrance.

"Oh no," she whispered. "Oh _no_. What have I—" Her eyes landed on Draco and she uttered a tiny shriek of terror. Leaping to her feet even faster than Draco had earlier, she grabbed the Invisibility Cloak and her bag up off the floor, still staring at him. "I, we, I mean… Oh hell." She passed a hand over her eyes in anguish. And then she gave him another frightened look. "I have to go," she said in a peculiar voice. And before Draco could manage to say anything, she had thrown the Invisibility Cloak over her shoulders and disappeared.

He stood for a moment, stunned, and staring at the spot where he had just seen Ginny. The sounds of the man at the foot of the stairs startled him back to reality.

"Ginny!" he whispered anxiously, eyes darting in hopes of catching some kind of sign where she had gone, or if she was even still there. "Ginny, you have to help me!" he went on in a low voice, feeling somewhat hysterical.

"Who's there?" a sudden voice called from the other end of the basement. A light flashed in Draco's direction but he ducked before it could reveal him.

"Merlin," he breathed to himself, crawling behind a stack of crates and trying very hard not to whimper in pain and fear. "This is _not_ my morning."

Apparently, the man had lost interest in his suspicion because he didn't pursue his query farther than the initial sweep of light. Draco breathed several long sighs of relief and went back to searching for his cloak, wondering, with a certain amount of despair, how he was going to get out of Honeydukes without being seen. He found the cloak on the ground where Ginny had been sleeping. It seemed that she had been using it as a makeshift mattress. Muttering to himself, he pulled it on and took his wand out of one of its pockets.

Listening until he was sure the man had gone back upstairs, Draco ignited his wand with a mumbled, "_Lumos!_" and began to search for a way out besides the obvious door at the top of the stairs.

-----

Ginny cursed at herself as she was hurrying back along the tunnel to Hogwarts. She was _so_ stupid! How could she have ever decided to even _go_ to that bar last night? And, as stupid as she had been to do that, how could she have been even stupider and left the bar with _Malfoy_? Oh, Merlin, was she in trouble now! She must be going mad; the shock of Colin and Catherine had addled her brains. Oh, Merlin, Merlin, Merlin…

Several long and agonizing minutes of self-abuse later, Ginny was slipping out from behind the one-eyed witch statue. She had resolved to forget the whole thing happened. In fact, she thought, as she was rushing down the corridors toward the Great Hall, as soon as she got the chance she was going to erase that entry out of her journal. She didn't ever want to see Malfoy or his enigmatic grey eyes ever again!

Fortunately, she was not that late for breakfast. She combed at her hair with slightly trembling fingers and sat down next to Hermione.

"Good morning," the older girl greeted her pleasantly as Ginny set her bag on the table. Hermione tilted her head at her. "Is something wrong? You look all flushed."

"Oh no, Hermione, I'm okay," Ginny said, a bit too fast. Hermione gave her a curious look as the redhead grabbed a glass of water and began to drink.

"You're not sick or anything? I have a potion with me that you might find useful…"

"No, no." Ginny tried at a smile as she said, "Really, I'm okay. I was just running here because I woke up late."

Hermione gave her a dubious look, probably because it was the weekend, but nodded and went back to eating. Ginny, who had just registered that the pounding between her eyes must be the result of all the alcohol from the previous night, downed the rest of her water and wondered who she could ask for an antidote. She scanned her fellow students but found she wasn't even seriously considering asking any of them. They would pose too many questions that she didn't care to answer.

She sighed and pulled her journal out of her bag, ready to perform that erasing spell, when her eyes caught sight of someone entering the hall. It was Draco.

Telling herself to look away or to look at anything_ but_ him, she watched as he crept along the wall, every now and then stopping to put a hand against the stones in order to steady himself. He looked awful. Much worse, she mused, than herself. His perfect silver-blonde hair was hopelessly mussed, he bore dark circles beneath his eyes, and his robes were very rumpled. She wondered, with an absent smile, why he hadn't fixed himself up before coming to the Great Hall. People were going to ask him quite a lot of questions…

Ginny realized that Draco had stopped in his progress along the wall and was staring straight at her. For a moment, she stared back; trying to interpret what he was feeling, and then she came to herself and pulled her eyes away. Staring down at her journal she softly berated herself under her breath.

"Did you say something?"

Ginny glanced up with a start.

"What? Oh… No, Hermione. I didn't say anything…"

-----

"Draco!" Pansy shrieked as the Slytherin boy sank into his seat. "What happened to you?"

Draco made a face. "Not so loud, please," he muttered, touching his forehead.

"Here." Grahm leaned across the table and handed Draco a goblet of smoking purple liquid. "You could probably use this."

Draco took it with a thankful look and drank. It tasted putrid but he could already feel his hangover lifting.

"What happened last night, mate?" Blaise asked, leaning on an elbow and resting his chin in a hand. Others around them fell quiet, prepared to listen. They'd all obviously been waiting for him to show up with an explanation. But somehow, Draco found himself in no mood for explaining anything.

"Nothing," he said shortly. "I just decided I'd go for a walk before we came back."

Grahm and Blaise exchanged looks. Draco scowled at them and pushed his goblet away across the table.

"Did you… get lost?" Blaise asked with an arched brow. Draco scowled deeper.

"Listen," he hissed, leaning toward the dark-haired boy. "I didn't ask for you two to follow me last night."

Grahm gave Blaise a grin. "C'mon, Blaisey boy. Let's drop it. He'll come 'round later." Blaise frowned at Grahm and gave Draco a narrow look. Draco, thoroughly pissed off now, met his look with one of ice-cold fury, and Blaise drew back. Finally, the other boy shrugged and picked up a forkful of egg. Draco folded his arms and tilted back in his chair with satisfaction.

"Mr. Malfoy. If I could have a word with you in private?" Draco looked up to see Professor Snape standing in front of him and wearing a grimace.

"Of course, Professor," Draco said, halfway relieved to be leaving his friends behind anyway. He gave them all a final look of severity before he left with Snape.

Surprisingly, when they got out into the hallway, Professor McGonagall was standing there. And, beside her, with a slightly fearful look on her pale face, was Ginny Weasley.

Draco recoiled. "What's this about, Professor?" he asked reproachfully, wondering how on Earth someone could have found out. He was almost certain that nobody had seen him leaving that odd witch statue behind.

"The Headmaster has requested to see you both," McGonagall informed him with a sniff.

"Why—" Draco began but Snape interrupted him.

"Your excursions last night did not go unnoticed," the sallow-skinned man said coldly. Draco, used to Snape being rather friendly with him, was taken aback at the elder's anger.

He gave both professors a spiteful look. "What? Are we going to be expelled?"

"Hardly," McGonagall said with a sharp look. "Follow me, both of you."

Leaving Snape behind, the two teenagers trailed after the Transfiguration teacher as she led them up to Dumbledore's office. After the password was given ("Canary Cream!") McGonagall rounded on them both.

"I want you to understand the severity of this situation," she said piercingly. "As Professor Dumbledore will undoubtedly tell you, you have both crossed the line too far this time. Mr. Malfoy, I expect more out of the school's Head Boy. And Ms. Weasley, I certainly expect more out of a Gryffindor. I shall be severely disappointed in both of you if you fail to comply with the school rules from now on."

Draco and Ginny both stared at her, slightly stunned by her sudden tirade. Professor McGonagall stared back for a moment, until, apparently satisfied, she pointed to the stairs.

"Well, go on then. He's waiting for you."

They didn't speak to each other on the stairs and as soon as they reached the top, Ginny opened the door. Draco wondered if she was trying to _not_ to talk to him, or if she just wanted to get things over and done with.

But he didn't have much more time for wondering. Dumbledore was indeed waiting for them, and Draco found himself swiftly seated next to Ginny, facing the Headmaster at his desk.

"Well," Dumbledore said with some finality to his tone as he stared at them. He folded his hands together and surveyed them calmly, blue eyes searching their faces.

"I expect that Professor McGonagall has informed you why you are here," he said at last. He began to shuffle through papers on his desk, no longer looking at them. Draco felt just a tiny bit of pressure rise from his chest. He hadn't realized that merely being stared at could make you feel like you were being grilled by a man with a hot poker. A man who wasn't afraid to use that poker.

"I must say that I am most disappointed with both of you."

Beside him, Ginny let out a small sigh.

Dumbledore went on. "You are both well aware of our school rules detailing that no student is to leave Hogwarts grounds without permission. And you both not only flaunted that rule last night, but took it to the limit by staying out all night and returning—" He fixed them both with a sudden and piercing look. "—hung-over."

Draco almost opened his mouth to tell the Headmaster that dozens of other students had been at the Drowned Rat last night, but wisely decided against it when he realized that would simply reveal their haven.

"I do not think that either of you requires a further lecture in how to behave yourselves. You both understand what you have done wrong and know how to correct it in the future. As punishment, you will both be serving detention with Professor Snape at six o'clock tomorrow night. I believe he will be having you clean the dungeons. They are unexpectedly dirty after only a week of school due to a few accidents committed by the first-years." For a moment, Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "I expect you will both appreciate the regular work of the House Elves after tomorrow evening.

"This punishment shall be more than enough for Ms. Weasley—" Ginny gave a start. "But you, Mr. Malfoy, are Head Boy, and should have a little more compunction about breaking school rules." Draco lowered his eyes and stared at the ground. He felt very, and quite uncharacteristically, ashamed. "It has therefore been decided that you shall also miss the Halloween Feast at the end of October. Professor Sprout will need some help with a few new Mandrakes we have this year and you are going to tend them while she is at the feast." Draco nodded glumly, his normal anger at hearing he would have to do servant's work forgotten. He felt that he deserved this for being so blind about Ginny.

"That understood…" They each got one final look of reprimand. "You are both dismissed."

They left quietly.

But as they were walking along the corridor back to their respective Common Rooms, Draco chanced a look at Ginny's face. Just out of curiosity. Her eyes seemed particularly hard and he noticed that her fists were clenched.

"What's the matter?" he asked, not slowing his stride. "Didn't you like Dumbledore's punishment?"

Ginny cut her gaze at him for a moment and then fixed her eyes straight ahead. "Oh no. I'd love to spend hours cleaning out the dungeons with you, Malfoy."

"Are we back to last names then, _Weasley_?" he retorted in scathing tones. He couldn't believe that this morning he'd been contemplating the thought of actually being in love with this girl.

"I wouldn't know," she replied coolly, hand tightening around the strap of her school bag.

Draco sneered at her. "Fine. If that's the way you want it."

"I didn't know it had ever changed."

And despite Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore's recent admonitions against breaking school rules, Draco seriously considered hexing her; he really did.

-----

Ginny tried as hard as she could to keep her temper under control until six o'clock on Sunday evening. She knew that none of her friends deserved her impatient outbursts, but they were brought on by Malfoy-induced thoughts and she was having trouble not exploding with the anger she felt. She couldn't believe that she was stuck cleaning dungeons with him for Snape, of all professors. What an _idiot_ she'd been to ever even come into contact with that insensitive creep!

Meanwhile, Draco's own anger had been reduced to a simmer of self-hatred. He also snapped at his friends but they were used to his temperament when something didn't go his way and didn't question his mood. That was good because, in the stew of Draco's thoughts throughout Saturday and into Sunday, he was ready to curse everyone else into oblivion to relieve the tension he felt. How could he have been so blind as to think that Ginny might've understood? That _Weasley_, he corrected her name with a glare at some hapless second-years as he was walking to the dungeons, could have ever made him feel happy was laughable now.

As six o'clock approached, both teenagers found their dark moods evaporating into shades of nervousness. Ginny hadn't been able to force herself to erase that journal entry yet and she discovered herself flipping to it at dinner and absently re-reading her words of interest about Draco.

"Malfoy," she corrected herself, and then she sighed and hung her head.

Harry, who had been watching Ginny from down the table a ways, turned to Hermione and Ron. "Do you think something's wrong with Ginny? She hasn't exactly been herself lately."

Ron brightened at Harry's mention of his little sister, excited that his friend might be interested in her at last, but Hermione gave the matter serious thought.

"She was rather odd at breakfast yesterday," she remembered. She shot a surreptitious look at Ginny who was now pushing her dinner around her plate and glancing at her watch every few seconds. "Maybe she's been meeting someone."

"Meeting who?" Ron asked sharply.

"Oh do calm down, Ron. It would explain why she was out all night on Friday, and why she looks so anxious now." Ron glanced at his sister and then back at Hermione.

"But who, do you think?" he said anxiously. Hermione rolled her eyes and resumed eating.

"Who cares, Ron? It's her life."

And then…

"She was out _all_ night on Friday!?"

Harry ignored the ensuing argument and watched Ginny for a little longer. He saw her stow her journal away and look at her watch yet again only to heave another sigh and get up from the table. He watched as she bade farewell to her friends and left the Great Hall. He didn't understand what had her in such a strange mood and he didn't really think it was his business to ask her, as much as he wanted to know. She was his friend and he was hers but…

He shook his head and turned back to his bickering companions. He wasn't sure what he thought anymore.

-----

Draco entered the Potions dungeon promptly at six o'clock, his theory being that the sooner he got things over with the better.

"Good evening, Draco," Professor Snape greeted him cordially from behind his desk. He looked up for a moment and gestured to his right. "Ms. Weasley is already here." Draco's eyes darted to find Ginny standing in the corner, a pail of water and a sponge in her hands. She did not look happy. "You may begin right away."

Draco nodded shortly, grinding his teeth a little despite himself. He walked over to join Ginny and grabbed the sponge away from her. "Well, come on, then," he said brusquely. Ginny's mouth twisted into a sullen frown as she drew the second sponge out of the bucket, but she followed suit and got down on her hands and knees to scrub at the slug-encrusted floor as Draco was already doing.

They worked in furious silence for a long while, only pausing now and then to drag the bucket a few more feet across the floor. Draco didn't trust himself to even do so much as glance at his companion for fear that he would forget himself and try to curse her. And from the first glimpse he got of Ginny's intense expression, he was sure she was doing the same.

Hours passed. At one point, Professor Snape left them alone with a promise to come back for them at midnight if they hadn't finished by then. Draco glanced at his watch, found it to be only nine thirty, and groaned aloud.

By eleven, the two were close to finishing. Draco sat back on his heels to review the work they'd done so far. Shoving the sweaty bangs from his face, he threw his sponge down.

"What are you doing?" Ginny almost immediately demanded in a sharp, albeit exhausted, voice. "You don't seriously expect me to finish this by myself, do you?"

Draco sneered at her. "Well, I wasn't. But now that you bring it up…"

Ginny flung her sponge down next to Draco's and stood up, her hands finding their place on her hips. "You're a real bastard, Malfoy," she announced.

Draco, not expecting such a violent response, mused to himself about how interesting it was to tease Ginny. Unlike his usual targets, he was never quite sure how the redhead would react to his words. He studied her face flushing crimson as he retorted, "Thank you. I do try to live up to my expectations."

"And just whose expectations are those, Malfoy? Your mother's?" Ginny swiped the sneer from his face as she added, "She couldn't expect much more out of someone trying to live up to her husband, I suppose."

"At least she expects me to be able to make more than a galleon a month. Wouldn't that be _your_ mother's expectations as set by _her_ husband?" His sneer found its way back.

Ginny glared at him and said nothing.

"Ah, yes. The truth hurts; doesn't it, Weasley?" he whispered viciously. Ginny's lips parted as though about to reply but he cut her off. "At least you can still have your fantasies of love with Colin Creevy to keep you company while you're struggling for a living."

Ginny's eyes widened. This, she felt, was going too far. All secrets divulged in Hogsmeade should never have even happened; therefore they were not fair game for insults. But if Malfoy felt differently… She got back down on the ground and picked up her sponge again, saying very nonchalantly, "Have you asked your friends what they think of Parvati yet? I'm sure I could get her to come around to you."

Draco jumped. "What are you talking about, Weasley? I thought we were mired in a battle of insults, unable to speak of anything but how much we hate each other…"

Ginny smiled at him sweetly. "You chose to cross the forbidden line. If you're willing to tease me for things unintentionally revealed then I have every right to blackmail you for your secrets, too."

"Blackmail! Ginny, I was just—"

"Oh? Are we back to first names then?"

Draco could feel the burning in his cheeks and hated himself for it. For once in his life, he couldn't think of anything to say, so he grabbed his sponge and began to scrub with vindictive force. What was he doing? Hadn't he decided already that Ginny wasn't worth his time anymore? She had just proved to him again that she didn't want anything between them save the animosity that was expected of them; why should he want anything more?

Ginny watched Draco working and felt a tad confused. Had Malfoy, the Slytherin Prince and King of Comebacks, just blushed because of her? Had she rendered him unable to respond to her taunting? And why had these things just happened? A sudden thought came to her that perhaps Malfoy still harbored feelings for the Ginny he met in Hogsmeade.

_But that's ridiculous_, she told herself. _You're not the Ginny you were then, and he wasn't the Draco he is now. _And then she realized that she'd called him Draco again. And then she remembered his words from yesterday morning, _Ginny, you have to help me!_ There had been more than the urgency of not being caught in those words. He had been pleading with her not to go without the affirmation that the night before had happened and was wonderful. She had seen the helplessness in his grey eyes, the dazed confusion and uncertainty that she herself had so strongly felt and run away because of. But was Draco still holding onto that confusion that she was trying desperately to get rid of? She didn't want to wonder what might've happened had she stayed with him yesterday morning.

The two worked silently for a few minutes, lost in the stew of their own thoughts, until Draco couldn't stand it anymore. He had to know if Ginny still felt that something – even the inkling of something – had happened between the two of them on Friday.

"Do you want to go back to first names?" he asked softly, and more tentatively than he might've done with someone else.

Ginny looked up at him in surprise. "Are you suggesting that we put eons of enmity behind us and be friends?" she asked.

Draco licked his lips and met her incredulous gaze. He was taking a huge chance with what he was about to say. "...yes," he said hesitantly, then, more firmly, "I mean, don't you think we had some kind of connection in Hogsmeade? You certainly acted scared that we'd forget about it." Something close to horror suddenly overtook him. "You do remember everything that happened right? Everything we talked about?"

"Of course!" she exclaimed. "I just thought it was..." Ginny emitted a small sigh and looked at her hands. "...a fluke. I didn't think you'd remember anything. And I didn't want to risk tainting the memory if that was all I could have." Somewhere she found the courage to look back up into those incredible grey eyes. "Something did happen in Hogsmeade, even though I'm still not quite clear what that was."

Draco felt something inside his mind release in unexpected elation. She felt the same way! "I'll tell you what happened. We both got drunk and poured our souls out to each other. It's hard not to feel connected to someone when you know most everything about them."

Ginny grinned helplessly. "If you think you know everything about me, Draco…"

"Ah! So we are back to first names." Draco smiled for the first time that night.

Ginny shook her head, unable to believe what was happening. "You do realize that not five minutes ago we were at each other's throats?" She passed a hand over her eyes. "I never thought I'd be friends with a Slytherin, let alone you."

"A Malfoy, you mean?" Draco chuckled. "Lighten up, Ginny. The world changes every day. And most times for the better."

Ginny stared at him. "I never expected you to be that much of an optimist," she marveled.

Draco narrowed his eyes at her, but smiled anyway, his happiness returning tenfold. "Tut, tut. I'd have thought you'd picked up more about me by now."

Ginny rolled her eyes, making Draco laugh.

"How about we get out of here?" he proposed, throwing his sponge in the bucket. "We could... go for a walk? Talk for awhile?"

A slow smile curved Ginny's mouth. She bit her lip, and placed her sponge in the water so it wouldn't splash like Draco's had. "I suppose," she said, then met his eyes nervously. "Merlin, this is so weird." Draco nodded.

"Yeah, tell me about it."

He gave her a hand to help her stand up, only to find that Professor Snape was standing not three feet away from them.

"That was a lovely exchange," he sneered. "But the two of you have not completed your duties."

Ginny gaped but Draco came to his senses quickly. "Professor, you won't—"

"Tell anyone you're friends with a Gryffindor brat?" Snape frowned. "Although I can think of an infinite number of people I'd rather see you socialize with, Mr. Malfoy, I will not give you away. Your business is your own." Draco breathed a sigh of relief that Ginny echoed. "But I am not about to excuse you from completing your detention. I want both of you back to work now." The hook-nosed teacher strode away from them to his desk. "And no talking!" he added decisively, seating himself and pulling out a stack of papers to grade.

Draco grinned and picked up his sponge. "Do you want to meet tomorrow?" he whispered to Ginny under his breath.

"There's an empty classroom on the third floor where I go to study," she replied just as quietly. "Meet me there after classes and we can talk."


	5. In the Moonlight

_A/N: This is a Shaksepeare inspired fic! Some tower's just begging to be climbed!_

****

**Chapter Five: In the Moonlight**

_"It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say, It lightens."_

-----

It was four in the afternoon and Ginny had just managed to shake Aubrey off with the excuse of wanting to go study with Ella in the library. Aubrey had given her a funny look. She was sure that Ginny was lying to her because of the way the redhead kept ripping pages out of her notebook and nervously tearing them to bits. But she didn't comment, merely let her friend do as she wanted and headed off alone.

And so Ginny found herself standing outside of her usual escape spot, a dusty little classroom on the third floor. She had discovered it late in her third year and had been using it ever since as her own personal haven. It was the perfect spot for her to sprawl out on the floor and write with her papers scattered all about her, as no one in the Common Room would let her. In fact, for the past two years that she'd used it, she had yet to observe anyone else even enter the room. As far as she was aware, even the House Elves didn't clean it; it was as dusty now as it had been the day she found it. For this reason, Ginny usually left most of her journals and experimental writings in a trunk in the corner of the room. It was rather incongruous of her to be hauling around stacks of parchment so she instead left them where she needed them.

Ginny opened the door with some wariness. It wasn't that she didn't think Draco wouldn't show up; it was just that she still wasn't quite sure what to expect out of the Slytherin. He had surprised her the night before, letting go of his normally bottled emotions enough to let her know that he still thought they might have something together. And she did agree with him, otherwise she wouldn't be here now. There was something peculiarly… right… about the way they could talk so easily to each other. Draco's view of life and love had been startlingly similar to her own (they were both hopeless romantics) and it didn't hurt that he seemed able to make her laugh at the drop of a hat. And besides, she could still recall that smile of his from their night of drunken revelry. No one had ever given her such a beaming look of utter joy as he had. She hadn't thought him capable of that much happiness, and for her to be the source of it still blew her away.

Thinking about all of this and wondering at how odd life truly was, Ginny peered around the doorjamb to see if Draco had found the right place. She wasn't disappointed. There he was, lying on his back and holding a piece of parchment up to his face so he could read it. Too late Ginny realized what Draco's natural curiosity had driven him to do.

"Don't read that!" She darted across the room before Draco even had a chance to lift his head up and snatched her paper from his hands. Smoothing it nervously against her stomach, she eyed the open trunk with its scattered papers. "How much did you read?" she demanded, sinking to her knees and trying to put them all back in some semblance of order.

Draco sat up slowly and watched her with interest. "It's about time you got here," he complained genially. "I was beginning to think you had stood me up."

"Don't be ridiculous, Draco," Ginny snapped, a little shaken at his discovery. "This is not a date. We just came here to talk." She shut the trunk with a muttered spell to lock it and twisted to face him. "And read, apparently."

"Hey." Draco raised his hands in self-defense and offered her his trademark smirk. "You were the one who let me be alone here with nothing to do." He pointed at her trunk. "You really should have a better spell on that. I opened it with a simple _Alohomora_."

Ginny crossed her arms and glowered. Draco smiled again.

"Listen, I didn't read all that much," he explained. "Just a few parts about Potter's apparently irresistible sex appeal when he—"

"DRACO!"

The blonde laughed. "Kidding. Just kidding. Actually, I was reading some story you wrote involving your brother Percy and some enchanted cauldrons. I had no idea you had such a vicious sense of humor, Weasley…" He laughed again as she chucked a quill at his head.

"I thought we came to talk," Ginny fumed. She really hadn't expected this. No one had _ever_ read any of her writing before. She wasn't too sure that she was okay with Draco being the first.

"We're talking aren't we?" Draco asked with a more amiable smile. "I like you, Ginny. You're fun to hang out with, even if you do have a certain tendency to express your anger in more physical ways." Ginny rolled her eyes at him, but couldn't help the smile that stole across her face.

"You like me, huh?" She unfolded her arms and gave him a more serious look. "Unfortunately for you, I happen to enjoy your company as well, so you'll just have to put up with my 'physical anger' if you piss me off."

Draco sighed with fake sorrow. "Looks like all my best conversation is off limits then."

Ginny smiled and tapped him on the nose. "Beep," she agreed.

-----

Two months later, so much had changed in Ginny's life that she wondered if she was the same person.

She and Draco never failed to meet each other every day after classes had ended. Draco was a completely different person when he was with her. Together, they talked for hours about things that didn't matter, and sometimes about things that did. Draco helped Ginny with her Potions homework and Ginny found the patience to explain to him why Care of Magical Creatures really wasn't all that bad. Sometimes Draco just sat still and watched Ginny write (turns out he was excellent at coming up with plot bunnies). On weekends, the two managed to escape their regular friends and ran off to walk through the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest where they could be alone.

They'd agreed not to be friends in public. House enmities had been running so high lately that they were scared of what might transpire if someone found out about them.

Nevertheless, they still laughed at all the poor saps in the rest of the school lacking a relationship like theirs. They had to be soulmates, Draco said one day in mid-October. That was the only explanation for why they had become friends despite Houses and families and other previous hatreds. And Ginny agreed. Regardless of the fact that the two had only _really_ known each other for two months, there was something incredible about the way they understood one another. And they didn't have any sort of physical relationship to tangle things up like other guy-girl duos, so everything was perfect. They were secret soulmates and Ginny had never been happier with her life.

-----

On Halloween, Ginny chose a seat between two of her roommates and her eyes immediately darted across the fantastically decorated Great Hall to look for Draco. It was an old habit by now for the two of them to have a brief bit of eye contact at each meal. When Ginny couldn't find her friend at the Slytherin table, she gave in to a moment of panic before remembering Dumbledore's long ago punishment. Draco was to watch Professor Sprout's Mandrakes tonight while she attended the Halloween Feast. Sighing, Ginny glanced about in appreciation at the decorations and felt a stab of pity that Draco had to miss it. It _was_ one of the better holidays, Halloween.

There was a sharp clang of metal against glass as Professor McGonagall attempted to get the student's attention. "Attention!" she called vainly. "Attention, please!"

Seeing that his underling was having no luck, Dumbledore took up his wand and waved it sharply. The loud gonging of a school bell rang throughout the hall, and every student turned to look at the Headmaster expectantly.

Dumbledore gave Professor McGonagall a small smile as she sat down with a mutter and opened his arms wide to the student body.

"I am pleased to announce," he said in a very official tone, "the upcoming Yule Ball."

Everyone began to whisper at once, wondering what theme Dumbledore had planned for them this year. Ever since the first Yule Ball of Ginny's third year, the Headmaster had made the dance a new tradition. Every year they had a Yule Ball to which all students above fourth year were invited, and every year they had a different theme. Just last year it had been an Under the Sea Ball and the Great Hall had been transformed to look like the bottom of the Caribbean, complete with coral reefs and tropical fish. Ginny had gone with her friends and had a blast. Somehow, she thought the whole thing might be a little more depressing this year. All of her roommates currently had boyfriends, even shy Ella who had found a Ravenclaw boy even shyer than she. And Ginny knew she couldn't go with Draco because everyone would completely bug out to see the two of them together. House animosities had been so much worse than ever this year, and she really had no wish to be hexed into a million pieces just for going to a dance with a Slytherin. _Life really is unfair sometimes_, she thought grimly, watching her girlfriends giggle their guesses to each other.

Dumbledore allowed them all their few moments of speculation before going on. "This year we have something quite fun planned," he grinned, his eyes twinkling madly. "We are to have a Masquerade Ball!" Everyone let out a loud _ooh_ of pleasure. "Magical costumes will be required," Dumbledore continued. "And all disguises will be lifted at midnight. The rules are the same as always. Fourth years and above are invited to attend. Lower years may come if asked by an older student, and the party stops after everything is revealed at midnight. There will, of course, be prizes for the best individual costumes and the best themed couples. Our guest band this year is the young wizarding pop group, Rebels Without Wands. I humbly suggest that anyone wishing to attend begin thinking of their costumes now. The ball will be held exactly one day before your winter vacation."

Dumbledore sat down amidst applause from his appreciative students, who were already plotting lists of disguise. Ginny propped her elbows up on the table and listened to her friends argue about whether they should dress in league with their boyfriends or go as individuals. She did not take notice of Harry Potter's furtive look of longing as his eyes grazed her face.

-----

Draco rubbed his eyes wearily as he made his way back from the greenhouses. Professor Sprout had come back on time, but insisted that he help her sing the mandrakes to sleep. Draco, who was fortunately blessed with a pleasant tenor voice, was nonetheless mortified that someone might find out about him singing duets with Professor Sprout in the greenhouses. Well, someone other than Ginny that was. He meant to tell her about it as soon as he saw her because he knew it would make her laugh. Draco found he'd do just about anything to hear Ginny laugh, even if it was at his own compromising circumstances.

Reaching the middle of a castle courtyard, Draco marveled at how bright everything was in the moonlight. The Slytherin had always had a particular love for nights such as this, when the moon cast a silver-white glow over everything below it. He already preferred night to day as most people his age did, but for him there was something enchanting about night itself. Another world emerged at night. One that was dark and forbidding, but alluring with its mystery. Different creatures inhabited the world that the moon governed. A different kind of people, too, lived their lives in the night. Draco worshipped these people even though most of them were woebegone artists, drunks, and figures in black who couldn't tell him what they did for a living. Someday he was going to shed his father's unreasonable expectations and run away to live in the night alone, or, at least, that's what he liked to think.

Staring up with a dreamy smile, Draco suddenly realized that his ambition had changed a bit. Before this year, he'd always expected that when he ran away it would be alone. Who would he have taken? His so-called friends in Slytherin were out because they didn't really understand him; they only saw him as their leader and someone to be obeyed at all costs. Not that he could blame them. He'd cultivated that image and thought he was better off without anyone, boy or girl, to understand his thoughts and desires. He'd preferred solitude most of the time, even though he usually never got it.

But then he had met Ginny, and everything had changed. Here was someone whom he had opened up to; in fact, the first someone that he had _ever_ opened up to. Now he couldn't quite imagine living a life without her. She made his days complete.

Draco frowned. In the past two months, he'd never once thought about what would happen when he graduated school. Ginny, of course, would still have another year left at Hogwarts, and his father would probably try to instill him in some sort of Deatheater business right away. He did talk about it more often now, going on at great lengths about the Dark Lord when he knew Draco could overhear him. Frankly, the idea of Voldemort repulsed Draco. It made him sick that his father was Voldemort's lap dog; he really didn't want to end up the same way.

But Ginny! What would he do when forced to live without her? He could deal with his father when the time came by carrying out his original plan of running away. But how satisfying a life could that be without his soulmate to talk to every day? He frowned again, deeper, and wondered why in Merlin's name he'd never broached the subject with her before.

Glancing about the courtyard, Draco tried to think of a way to put his thoughts into words and tell Ginny what he felt. She knew about his less than enthusiastic feelings for his father and the Deatheaters, but nothing about him running away to live the nightlife indefinitely. He smiled to himself, thinking of how whimsical that sounded, when his searching eyes spied that he was standing next to Gryffindor Tower.

A sudden idea snatched the blonde's thoughts. He would climb up the tower, find Ginny, and bring her outside to show her the night itself. Then she would understand.

He nodded and walked over to the wall, feeling it for handholds. The stone wasn't smoothly interlocked, so Draco found the ascent rather easy. He had a Seeker's classic build, all wiry muscle and light as a feather, so climbing was no problem. It wasn't until he peered into the first dormitory window that he realized his real problem. He couldn't be sure which window was Ginny's!

As he reached the seventh window with his aching muscles about to give out on him, Draco caught a glimpse of long red hair spread across a pillow glowing white in the moonlight. Thanking Merlin, the sneaking Slytherin drew himself onto the windowsill and noiselessly pushed the unlocked window open. It was a peculiarly warm night for the end of October and the girls had left it open to catch the breeze. Draco dropped to the ground in a crouch and took a quick look around the room. All five beds were occupied and each occupant seemed in deep sleep.

Congratulating himself on his success, Draco stood and made his way over to Ginny's bed. When he was standing over her, he stopped and stared. The only time Draco had ever seen Ginny asleep before was that fateful night in Hogsmeade. Due to his state at the time (intoxicated with booze and happiness), he couldn't really remember what she had looked like with her eyes closed, but now he could see her in the full light of the moon. She looked different when she was asleep, younger and more trusting. One of her hands lay open at her side as though she were inviting someone to come lay down beside her and join in her world of dreams. Draco tilted his head and watched her chest rise slowly in the deep breathing of total sleep. He had never thought about it since that night, but Ginny really was a very attractive girl. Awash in the silver radiance of the moon, he could almost call her beautiful. She wasn't like the girls he normally chased, all flaunted beauty with makeup and teasing smiles. She seemed to put herself forward as humanly flawed. She never wore makeup and hardly ever cared to do more than pull her hair back with a ribbon. She didn't tease the boys she liked, but became their friends and gradually let them see that she could be more. She was utterly seductive in her innocence without even trying.

Draco suddenly felt hot all over. Here he was, standing over his sleeping best friend, and thinking about how good she looked. There was definitely something wrong with that. He rubbed his forehead and thought he might be a little light-headed from the climb up the tower.

Ginny mumbled something incoherent into her pillow and turned over so that she was lying on her back. Draco felt his eyes widen slightly as he identified the foreign feeling that was making him feel so shaky all of a sudden.

_Love_.

Scared out of his wits, Draco took a mental step backward and examined the feeling. After all, he'd never been in love before. He wasn't quite sure what love felt like. He knew stories made up silly things like feeling sick and seeing stars and hearing angel's sing, but he wasn't even sure that he'd ever experienced platonic love. He certainly didn't love his father. Oh, he had loved him the way any child loved a parent that scared them: in a constant state of frustration, trying forever to prove their love so the parent would be proud and love them, too. But he'd gotten over that recently.

Did he love his mother? His friends?

His mother had always favored him, spoiled him, fawned and cooed over him. He was fond of her doting, but he couldn't be sure if he _loved_ her.

Most of his friends he wrote off without thinking twice. But Blaise? Grahm? He'd lived in the same dormitory as Blaise for seven years; he knew the dark-haired boy almost as well as himself. And Grahm had become a huge part of his life. But did he love them?

And Ginny – had he loved her before this new revelation? She was undoubtedly the closest friend he'd ever had in his life. Had he loved her unconditionally as a friend?

And was this love anyway? This rushing, roaring feeling that was overwhelming him as he looked at her? The thought came that he'd gladly die if it meant she could live, and then he knew.

He was in love.

And he knew that he would do anything for her. He knew that he wanted her the way he'd wanted her in Hogsmeade. He wanted to kiss her again, to feel her skin, hot against his own, again. He wanted to protect her in way he'd never wanted to protect anyone. He wanted so much...

So much that it was all _too_ much. He stumbled back a few steps and shook his head. He couldn't feel this way! What if she didn't return his more than platonic feelings?

But he couldn't think of that either. He had been in love with her since the start, he knew that now. All it had taken was one moment of seeing her vulnerable to bring the feeling roaring to the surface, and now it was consuming him. He came back to the edge of her bed and reached out with a hand to brush the hair from her face. She stirred slightly under his touch and a small smile graced her lips as she slept on, unaware of his presence. Draco couldn't help himself at that. He leaned down to gently kiss her forehead.

Quite abruptly, Ginny felt the strange contact and awoke, jerking forward so that the two collided. Upon finding a stranger trying to kiss her she shrieked aloud, throwing herself toward her nightstand and fumbling for her wand. Draco, who was stunned but not stupid by any means, quickly leapt onto her bed and clapped a hand over the screaming girl's mouth.

"Would you shut up!" he hissed, jerking the curtains around the bed shut. "It's me! Draco!"

He saw the light of recognition in her eyes and took his hand away. Ginny sat there and gawked at him in amazement. "Draco?" she whispered, hardly believing it. "What on Earth are you doing here? It's midnight!"

"I wanted to—" Draco cut himself off as he heard the sounds of Ginny's roommates waking up.

"What's going on?" Aubrey's sleepily exasperated voice drifted out from the other side of the room.

"Ginny, are you all right?" Catherine inquired in a similar tone. Ginny darted Draco a look of terror as they heard the sound of one of the girl's feet hitting the floor. He gave her a pleading glance, willing her to think of something.

"I'm fine," Ginny said desperately. "Really. I just had a nightmare, that's all. I'm all right now."

"Are you sure?" The footsteps had stopped. Draco held his breath and watched through a crack in the curtains as the girl stared uncertainly at Ginny's bed.

"Yes. Go back to bed, Cat. I'm okay." The girl frowned and shook her head, but got back into her own bed as Ginny had requested.

Draco let his breath out in relief and cast a silencing charm around the bed as he turned back to Ginny. All of a sudden, the two seemed very close in the darkness. Draco could feel his heart thumping painfully in his chest.

Ginny offered him a little grin. "Draco," she said in a gently scolding voice, "How did you get up here?"

Draco returned her smile, suddenly remembering his original purpose for coming here. "I climbed up the wall," he replied. "It was easy."

"You climbed up the—Draco! You could've killed yourself!" She watched as he peered through the curtains. "What are you doing now?" she whispered in his ear, coming to sit beside him.

Trying not to let himself be distracted by the closeness of her body or the warmth that tickled his cheek when she spoke, Draco pointed toward the window. "Come on. I want to show you something."

"Show me what? Draco…" But he was already clambering off her bed and tip-toeing to the windowsill. Ginny's friends had all fallen back asleep, but he took care to stay quiet. Now if only he could contain the rush of feelings swirling in his head...

"Come on!" he urged Ginny, beckoning her with his hands. Ginny sighed as she slid out of bed and came to stand with him by the windowsill. Draco stuck his head out the window and checked to make sure there was no one in the courtyard below. Seeing that the coast was clear, he pulled himself up onto the windowsill and lowered himself onto the roof at his left. He looked up as Ginny cautiously drew herself up onto the sill.

"It's easy. Just jump down," he commanded in a whisper, moving to make room for her beside him.

"Easy," Ginny muttered to herself. "Stupid boy." She dropped down beside him a little clumsily, and stood there, shivering in her nightgown. Draco shrugged off his school robes and handed them to her.

"Go ahead. You can wear them," he said, picking his way across the roof. Ginny watched as he strode along as though the steep roof was nothing more than another piece of pavement. Coming to the conclusion that being a Seeker must lend him an unnatural fearlessness of heights, she tugged his robes on for warmth and started to follow him. The robes were a bit too long for her and the sleeves slid over her fingertips but at least she wasn't cold anymore. Holding her arms out for balance, she followed the blonde over the roof until he came to spot where they could both see the lake and the Forbidden Forest beyond. They sat down together and Ginny leaned against his shoulder so she wouldn't feel so disconnected from the world.

"You missed the announcement of the Yule Ball," she told him after a moment of silence. Draco shook his head.

"What has the old bat picked for the theme this year?"

Ginny punched his arm for calling Dumbledore an old bat but told him anyway.

"A Masquerade?" A wicked grin stole over the Slytherin's face. "Now that has possibilities."

Ginny shook her head, seeing that he was already as into it as everybody else was. She decided to change the subject. "How were the Mandrakes? Are you getting chummy with them yet?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Sprout had me sing them to sleep." Ginny laughed as he regaled the entire story, including a few samples of Professor Sprout's singing voice, which made her cringe. After wiping the tears of mirth from her eyes, she remembered why he had dragged her out here.

"What is it that you wanted to show me?"

Draco gave her secretive smile and gestured to the sky with a careless arm. "This. I wanted you to see this."

Ginny stared up. The full moon and the endless multitude of stars surrounding it stared back at her. She smiled, catching Draco's mood. "It's beautiful," she remarked, leaning back so she could take it all in.

Draco wasn't really the type to babble incoherently, as some of his classmates tended to do when they were with a girl they liked. Draco was rather debonair about the whole thing, actually. He played it cool and acted like nothing was wrong.

"Ginny, I have a serious problem."

Ginny gave him an alarmed look. "What do you mean? Is something wrong?"

Draco cursed himself for an idiot and jammed his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. Something is definitely wrong with me," he whispered.

"What is it?" Ginny whispered back, her hazel eyes shimmering with fear. "Tell me."

Draco didn't answer for a moment. He couldn't possibly say in a few words all that he felt, so he wasn't sure what to tell her. "I have nowhere to go after I graduate," he admitted finally.

Ginny looked puzzled. "Surely your dad has—"

"Fuck him," Draco interrupted her with a growl. Ginny pulled away from him, startled by his malevolence. "The only thing my father cares about is keeping the family line pure and the family name intact. Which means that he wants me to follow in his footsteps. His _exact_ footsteps," he said, giving her a meaningful look. She nodded, understanding what he meant, and let him talk on.

"But the night is so beautiful," he explained softly. "Everything about it is beautiful. When I was little, I used to sneak out at night just so I could see how the gardens looked in the darkness. Once, my mother didn't realize I was gone, and they didn't find me until the next morning. I had gone into town and was sitting at the bar with a dragon tamer. My father was never so angry at me when I told him that one day I was going to run away and become a vampire." Ginny giggled quietly beside him. He gave her a look of askance and she blushed.

"It's just…" She bit her lip and grinned. "I used to say the same thing. My parents always thought that Fred and George were telling me embellished stories, but the truth of the matter was that I liked living the nightlife. It was the only time I could ever be alone."

"Exactly," Draco agreed, his voice turning strange. "That's why…" His ashen eyebrows drew together in consternation. "I don't think it's very fair of me to ask you this." He looked at her and Ginny marveled at the turbulence clouding his already stormy grey eyes. This wasn't the only thing bothering him. "But I'm going to anyway. Ginny, do you think… that possibly, in any way, you might like to…"

He stopped quite abruptly. Ginny's eyes were nearly glowing in the moonlight with an eerie silver sheen as she looked at him in earnest. He couldn't ask this of her. She had her own life, and, at the moment, it had did not include running away with him. Hell, what was he thinking? There was one reason he could think of that would make her want to come with him, but as far as he was aware, she didn't return his feelings. However, Draco wasn't cowardly, and there was really only one way to find out.

"What is it, Draco?" Ginny asked, feeling bit put out. Was all that buildup for nothing? But Draco was looking at her very oddly… "Draco..?" she said again, arching an eyebrow. "Draco, would you please just spit it out?"

Draco drew a deep breath. There really was only one way. He leaned forward and, before Ginny could register what he was about to do, he kissed her. All at once, the dizzy feeling from Hogsmeade was back. But it quickly faded when Ginny didn't return the kiss. For one moment, they sat there, locked in tension, and then Ginny pushed him away.

"This is wrong," she said, looking terrified. She stood up. "It's wrong. We can't do this, Draco. We can't. It isn't right." And she began to walk away from him, making her way back to the window as fast as she could.

"But, Ginny!" Draco said in distress, leaping up to follow her. He slipped and his arms windmilled crazily as he tried to catch his balance. Ginny stopped and looked back anxiously, but he caught himself and started toward her. "Ginny, please—" But she shook her head, eyes shining, and hoisted herself up into the window.

"Ginny, wait!" Draco darted forward and grabbed her foot in a desperate attempt to stop her. The redhead was caught off guard and tripped, sprawling to the floor and knocking over her nightstand. Horrified that he had hurt her, Draco was pulling himself into the window as the other girls woke up from the sound of the crash. One of them spotted Draco's shadowy form on the windowsill and screamed. Cursing aloud, he dropped back onto the roof below him and scrambled across it as quickly as humanly possible. Behind him, he could hear the girls shouting after him, one of them laughing and another talking very fast in a high-pitched voice. Assuring himself that Ginny must be all right if they could laugh, he climbed down the wall and sped off to the dungeons.

It was well after midnight, and no one was around to see him as he staggered into the Common Room, and collapsed onto a chair by the fire. He ran his fingers through his hair and held his head in his hands, breathing ragged breath through his open mouth. It was very probably the worst night in his life and he was only glad that nobody was there to see him choke back his tears. After all, Malfoys_ never_ cried.


	6. In Confusion

_A/N: Hermione ponders, Ron chokes, Ella worries, and Harry confesses. Ginny gets into a tight spot, and Draco is... a Malfoy._

****

**Chapter Six: In Confusion**

_"I have been feasting with mine enemy; where, on a sudden, one hath wounded me that's by me wounded."_

-----

Hermione knew when Ginny entered the Great Hall the next morning that something was wrong. The poor girl bore such a weary look of emotional and physical exhaustion that Hermione wondered whether she'd taken a brief trip to Azkaban. Her roommates, however, seemed ignorant of Ginny's state. They bobbed about her like antsy two year-olds, giggling and chattering away as she trudged over to the Gryffindor table.

As the youngest Weasley sank into a seat beside her seventh-year friends, her roommates settling themselves about her, Hermione offered her a look of concern.

"What's going on, Gin?" Ron had the grace to ask his sister from around a mouthful of toast. Harry, his expression unusually tense, watched Ginny without touching his breakfast at all.

Ginny turned a glazed look upon all three of them and made a vague gesture that was difficult to interpret. Hermione frowned.

"I'll tell you what's going on," one of her roommates proposed silkily. Aubrey absently twirled a lock of her honey hair as she said, "Ginny had a visitor last night."

Catherine sniggered and propped her elbows up on the table. Leaning forward with a smile she elaborated upon Aubrey's statement. "A _midnight_ visitor."

"Who left his robes!" The story was completed by a conspiratorial whisper from Miranda, a fiery-haired girl who was wearing a pair of fake diamond earrings that flashed every time she moved her head. Hermione frowned at the younger girl and thoughtfully fingered her Head Girl's badge.

"A what who left his what!?" Ron spluttered, choking on his toast. Ginny made a soft moaning sound as she slid down her seat and disappeared behind her hands, a red flush creeping up her collar. The usually quiet Ella looked up from an essay she was writing and patted Ginny's shoulder, glancing at Hermione. Hermione was startled for a moment - she hardly knew Ella at all - but she soon recognized the depth of concern in the other girl's eyes.

As Harry was busy hitting Ron on the back and the other girls were all laughing at Ron's outrage, Ella dipped her quill into her ink bottle and scratched out a note on a piece of her essay parchment. Ginny slipped further down in her seat, almost vanishing beneath the table, and Ella bit her lip, looking undecided about something. Then she pushed the piece of parchment across the table. Hermione took the paper hesitantly, ignoring Ron, who had finally regained control of himself and was trying to interrogate his uncooperative sister.

_Hermione, the robes were from a Slytherin. And Ginny cried herself to sleep last night. Please help her. She's been ignoring us so much lately, and I think there's something really wrong._

"Would you please leave me alone?" Ginny was shouting at Ron when Hermione looked up from Ella's note. Hermione flashed Ella a brief nod, and then took over the situation.

"Ron, stop it this instant."

"But, Hermione… She's really gone too far… Didn't you hear…? At midnight…!" Ron was still sputtering, no matter the lack of toast in his mouth. Beside him, Harry looked at Ginny miserably.

"I heard, yes. Why don't you let me talk to her?"

Ginny, however, had her arms tightly crossed and was scowling furiously at Hermione. "As if you've any more right to chew me out for this, Hermione," she snapped.

Affronted, Hermione realized that perhaps Ella was all too right to worry. In her experience, Ginny was nearly always happy to exchange Ron's noisy outrage for Hermione's calm reasoning.

"Why can't you all just leave me alone?" the redhead raged further as she stood up and threw her book bag over her shoulder. Giving them a glare that encompassed all except Ella, she swept off to sit with the first years at the end of the table. Hermione watched, as open-mouthed as her companions, as the startled eleven year-olds made room for the irate stranger.

"Well," Aubrey said at last with some finality to her tone.

Miranda almost immediately began to giggle again. "Just shows that she's got something to hide," she said, laying a knowing finger against her nose. Catherine shook her head and smiled, but Ella gave Hermione another anxious look as she sipped her orange juice.

"Ron, Harry, maybe we should go…" Hermione began, putting her hands on her usual stack of books.

Ron shot her a look. "You mean, to tell Ginny that she'd better—"

"I _mean_, we'd better go," she said firmly, nodding at the door. "There's something in the library I think we should check out."

Reluctantly, Ron got up to join her. Harry rose behind him and jammed his hands in his pockets as he followed them outside.

"All right," Hermione said, as soon as they were out of the Great Hall. "First things first. Ginny's obviously upset about something quite personal. It won't be solved by badgering." She glared at Ron.

His ears turned red. 'Look, I'm only worried that she might—"

"Stop worrying. I intend to find out what's wrong with her. Second of all, Harry, _what_ is bothering you?"

Harry, surprised that someone had noticed his lack of participation in the morning's activities, shuffled his feet. "What? Nothing's bothering me…"

Ron darted a startled look at his friend. He hadn't noticed anything wrong.

Hermione sighed. "Harry, you're not good at lying. Please tell us what's wrong?"

Harry froze a moment before answering. As he spoke, his face turned almost as red as Ron's ears. "I think that I might be in love with Ginny," he mumbled.

Ron stared at Harry and then let out a whoop of excitement. Harry gave him a frightened glance as he began to do a little victory dance. "This is awesome, mate!" Ron exclaimed, grabbing Hermione's hands and making her dance with him. He continued to speak to Harry over his shoulder as he twirled the unsuspecting Head Girl about. "Now you can marry my sister and I can marry Hermione and we'll all be one happy family!"

He stopped quite suddenly and his eyes widened at what he had just let slip out of his mouth. "That is…" Harry grinned, his Ginny problem momentarily forgotten; he had waited a long time for this moment.

"Umm… Flattered as I am…" Hermione stuttered, trying to think of something to say.

Ron backpedaled desperately. "What I meant was, if Hermione will come to the Yule Ball with me, then we can all go together and have… the time of our lives…" He trailed off, looking at Hermione with fearful hope in his eyes.

"Ron, you idiot!" Hermione said, flinging her arms around the astonished boy and kissing his cheek. "Why didn't you just ask?"

Harry quietly slipped away from them, the smile on his face fading. He was happy for them, he had wanted to see them together for a long while, but he couldn't help feeling a bit thankful that they were too preoccupied to think much about his confession. It was all well and good for them to go to the Ball together, but his wish to go with Ginny didn't look like it was going to come true anytime soon. This morning had shown that she already had someone to go with… Someone who would scale towers on her behalf… He kicked the wall in his frustration and spent the rest of the day wallowing in pain and misery.

-----

Back in the Great Hall, Ginny was carefully shredding pieces of toast and trying very hard to keep her mutterings from escaping her mouth. She couldn't remember a time in her life when more emotions had swirled through her than now. Snatching the last piece of toast away from a meek little first year who gave her a frightened look, she sighed rather forcefully. Last night… No, she did not want to think about last night.

Automatically, as though just thinking about him had made her do it, she looked over to the Slytherin table. As always, Draco was seated amidst a fawning group of his housemates. But this morning, instead of commanding their attention with peremptory conversation, he had his eyes fixed on his breakfast plate as though vaguely wondering what he was supposed to do with it. Blaise Zabini and Grahm Pritchard seemed to be trying to ask him what was wrong and Pansy Parkinson had taken up the duty of getting him to eat. She slid various plates of food or pitchers of drink in front of him, with no response. This useless display of friendship had gone on for nearly ten minutes when Draco abruptly got to his feet, made a quiet announcement that he had a class to get to, and left.

Ginny's eyes sank to the plate of shredded toast in front of her. It was the first time in two months that Draco had not noticed her look and looked back. She suddenly felt very alone.

If only (Ginny watched in morose silence as students began to leave the Great Hall for class) Draco didn't feel that way about her! Then they could still be the best friends they were without this whole disaster hanging between them. As it stood… She didn't think Draco would ever talk to her again. Last night she had shot him down without any explanation, doing the one thing they had promised each other they would never do to another person. It didn't help that he had startled her beyond belief. The last thing she had expected out of Draco was for him to kiss her. Again.

She shook her head, feeling the same confusion rush back from last night. It was the confusion that had haunted her from that night in Hogsmeade… Everything came back to that. She couldn't say that she hadn't liked Draco kissing her then without lying, but she had been hurt then. She had needed that external comfort, even if it happened to come from someone who was searching for the same thing. If only…

Her thoughts went on in this vein for several minutes, and so engrossed was she in her internal conflicts that she didn't notice that everyone had left. It was not until the school bell rang that Ginny finally looked around.

Feeling somewhat bitter that none of her friends had seen fit to wake her from her thoughts, Ginny gathered up her things and slowly made her way to Charms. She was still caught up in thoughts of Draco and the mess that suddenly seemed to be her life, and didn't care much that she was late to class.

"Well, well, what have we here?" a snide voice interrupted her progress. Ginny glanced up to find the dark form of Draco's friend, Blaise, standing directly in front of her. Panicking suddenly at the thought that he somehow knew about her connection to Draco, she took a quick step backward.

"I never meant to hurt him," she said defensively, clutching her bag nervously.

"Who do you think you could hurt, little lion?" Blaise sneered, the light of malice in his eyes. Ginny was used to the tall Slytherin prowling the halls and spoiling for a fight, but she hadn't thought him capable of attacking any random Gryffindor he came across.

"I…" Confused, she whirled around, meaning to run back the way she came, and found the thick bodies of Crabbe and Goyle blocking her way. Crabbe cracked his knuckles in a menacing manner and Goyle's mouth twisted into what was probably supposed to be a smirk like Blaise's.

Turning back around, she found Blaise standing mere inches away. "You're the Weasel's little sister," he mused, reaching out to touch her red hair. Ginny froze, terrified. Classes had started and there was no one else in the hallway to stop the Slytherins if they tried to do anything to her. She drew her hand back to her side and clenched it into a fist. She could feel Crabbe and Goyle breathing on either side of her. "I don't like little lions," Blaise went on, dropping her hair. "But I like little weasels even less."

He moved to grab his wand from his pocket but Ginny let fly her fist directly into his stomach. It wasn't enough to do much damage to the Quidditch-hardened seventh year, but it shocked him and gave Ginny time to dart around him. She pelted down the corridor, away from the shouting Slytherins and felt tears of anger and fear stinging her eyes.

Running wildly, without the slightest clue as to where she was going, she rounded a corner and ran smack into another student. Upon collision, the boy instinctively wrapped his arms around her so that she wouldn't fall backwards. They staggered a few feet together and then he let go, reaching up with both hands to dust off his robes. Ginny felt a blush burning in her face as she settled her bag on her shoulder, and then looked at the boy to apologize. Her mouth fell open.

"Watch where you're going," Draco said coldly, avoiding her eyes.

Ginny blushed further. "I'm sorry, Draco. I just—"

"You think I care, _Weasley_?" Draco hissed beneath his breath. This time he did meet her eyes and Ginny drew back from the injury that shone there. "You made your decision." He looked her over quickly, and then stalked away, his robes billowing out behind him.

"Draco!" Ginny called after him, a new confusion rising to replace the old one. "Draco, wait!"

But the blonde walked on, impervious to Ginny's pleading, and she was left alone once again.


	7. In Realization

_A/N: Can heaven be so envious?_

****

**Chapter Seven: In Realization**

_"Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd."_

-----

For the next several days, Ginny's grades took a sharp turn in the wrong direction. When she wasn't skiving classes to look for Draco, she spent the time she should have been to listening to her professors in bewildered thought trying to figure out exactly how she could fix the rift between them. He sent her owls back unanswered and refused to look her way anytime she attempted to catch his gaze. She left him notes in the abandoned classroom on the third floor that she later found torn to bits or burned to ash. Ginny almost burst into tears when she discovered that he'd even refused to take back the robes he'd lent her that night. His return owl only said two words - 'Permanently damaged.'

Even worse, Draco's hurt seemed to have morphed itself into an insatiable anger against her House. Fighting between the Gryffindors and Slytherins was worse than ever, and Ginny was nearly positive that Draco was behind every new scheme for revenge. She could see his hand in everything, despite the fact that none of the teachers seemed able to catch him. He was becoming something of a hero to the rest of the Slytherins though, all of whom had always respected his authority, but were now, on top of that, also treating him like some sort of god come to Earth. The blonde appeared to revel in the new spotlight cast upon him and Ginny found herself wondering if she'd ever truly known him.

Her normal friends quickly despaired of finding out what had Ginny so preoccupied, as she ignored them even more thoroughly than she ignored her schoolwork. Hermione and Ron would have still been worried, had it not been for the fact that they were now so caught up in each other they wouldn't have noticed if the world was crumbling about them. Harry and Ella remained her only friends still trying desperately to get her to admit what was going on. And neither of them was very good at getting her to communicate with them.

It wasn't until Ginny received a Howler from her mother about her grades that she realized she had to find some way to resolve herself to the fact that Draco would never forgive her. She was lost without him, but if he had found some way to get along without her, well, she could do it too.

Three weeks had passed since Halloween, and Ginny was soon buried in a veritable mountain of make-up work. Harry and Ella, happy that the redhead seemed to have woken up from whatever dream she'd been absorbed in, offered to help her get back on track. The three were soon staying up till all hours in the Gryffindor Common Room, wading through Ginny's assignments. She loved them both for sticking by her, but couldn't help feel that they weren't Draco.

-----

It was early December, and Ginny was sitting at a table in the Common Room, staring at the flames billowing in the fireplace. She'd sent Ella to bed long ago, and Harry was already asleep in a chair by the fire, the light playing in graceful lines over his face as he slept. Ginny was, for the first time in a long time, thinking about her writing. She hadn't touched a single notebook since Halloween and had just concluded that she missed her scribbling and felt that maybe she would take it up again.

From somewhere out of the darkness, she heard the sound of the Fat Lady's portrait swing open. Turning in her chair, she saw Harry disappear through the portrait hole into the black hallway outside.

"Harry?" she called softly, in questioning. Harry didn't answer. He disappeared as the darkness swallowed him from view. Alarmed, Ginny got to her feet and ran to the portrait hole before it could close.

"Harry!" she called again, still quiet. Her eyes probed the length of the hallway but she could find no sign of her raven-haired friend.

"Strange," she muttered to herself, turning around to go back into the Common Room. But instead of the Fat Lady she met a solid wall.

Pulling back with a start, she looked about in confusion. She wasn't in the hallway by the Gryffindor Common Room at all. She was standing in the Great Hall with all of the student's tables missing. And she wasn't alone.

Shadows from the guttering torches on the walls flickered fitfully across Draco's pale face as he stood, staring down the length of the hall. Ginny stepped up beside him and frowned.

"Draco?" she asked. When he did not respond, she hesitantly lifted a hand to touch his shoulder and said his name again.

As she had expected, he shook off her touch immediately. Sighing, she bent her head and whispered, "Draco, I'm sorry. How many times do I have to say it? I—"

"Don't." Ginny nearly jumped out of her skin. It had been so long since he'd said anything to her. "I don't deserve it."

His lips barely moved as he talked, but Ginny heard all five words as though he'd shouted them. "What do you mean, Draco?" she breathed. "I _am_ sorry, and I want more than anything in the world for us to be friends again."

Draco didn't answer this time, but his eyes narrowed as he continued to gaze across the hall, as though waiting for someone. Ginny peered in the direction that the Slytherin was staring and found nothing but shadow and torchlight. She turned back to Draco and was surprised to discover that someone else had joined them.

"Harry!" she exclaimed, forgetting herself. Wincing at the sound of her voice echoing around the empty hall, she resisted the urge to babble out an explanation for why she was standing here alone with Draco Malfoy. Instead, she tilted her chin up defiantly and said, "What are _you_ doing here?" just as though it was he who was in the wrong and not her.

But Harry ignored her. He crossed his arms and glared at Draco, green eyes blazing in the dark like embers.

"Why did you do it, Draco?" he asked angrily. "Was it only a ploy to get at me? Are you that obsessed with our rivalry?"

Draco appeared unruffled by Harry's appearance. He listened to Harry gravely, then shook his head. "You don't understand," he said, his eyes on Harry's face. "Everything that happened was an accident."

"An accident?" Harry laughed, but it sounded forced to Ginny's ears. He stopped short, and waved Draco's answer away. "That's an excuse, and you know it."

"Harry…" Ginny looked between the two boys in confusion. "What's going on?"

"It's not an excuse," Draco said calmly, ignoring Ginny's interruption. "It's the truth."

Harry's face flushed red in anger. He whipped out his wand. "I am not going to let you ruin my life anymore."

"What are you doing, Harry?" Ginny asked, staring at his bared wand with dread. She took a step toward Draco.

"You don't understand, Potter…" Draco was saying. For the first time, he looked at Ginny. She met his fearful gaze and took another step toward him.

"Of course I understand," Harry snapped, his smoldering eyes erupting into emerald flames. Ginny gaped as he leveled his wand at Draco's chest. "You killed him, Draco, and I am not going to leave you alone."

"It was an accident!" Draco suddenly shouted, his calmness gone in a spasm of fury. His cheekbones were tinged red but his eyes somehow remained clear and focused. "Everything that happened was an accident!" He raised his hands, but they were empty. Ginny realized with a jolt that the Slytherin didn't have his wand with him.

"Why do you keep saying that?" Harry said, and the tip of his wand glowed red for a brief moment. There was a strange sharpness to his words as he spoke, and it chilled Ginny to the core. "Everything you've ever done has been to hurt me," Harry went on. "But you can't hurt me anymore, Draco." He motioned at Ginny, trying to get her behind him, but she shook her head and refused.

"No, Harry. You have to stop this. I don't know what you think he did, but Draco must be telling the truth about it being an accident." She took one more step and stood right next to Draco, not feeling anxious at all when he gratefully took her hand in his.

Harry's eyes widened and he flew at Draco with wand outstretched as he screamed, "Don't touch her!" Ginny was knocked roughly aside as the two boys grappled with each other. She stumbled backwards into a wall and hit her head so hard that spots of color danced before her eyes. She heard Harry shout a curse that sounded like it came from only a few feet away from her and the entire Great Hall spun sideways. The torches hissed and spat as twisted shadows raced across the floor and walls. Ginny shrieked as everything seemed to dissolve and felt as though she was falling even though she didn't move. Several long moments passed before things righted themselves again.

Ginny immediately dropped to her knees and felt the floor with hands seeking reassurance. She was in the Common Room again. Upon finding things reasonably stable, she rose and looked around, wondering what Harry had done. Was it his curse that had brought her back here?

"Harry?" she inquired in a small voice, peering at the shadows. The Common Room was eerily quiet compared to the shouting match she'd been engulfed in a few moments ago. "Draco?" she whispered, a little more softly.

And then, as if called by her tentative question, the portrait hole swung open and Draco staggered inside, wild-eyed and clutching his stomach. Ginny's questions died on her lips when he caught sight of her. He uttered a tiny cry of distress that made her give a start and run across the room to him. He stumbled forward and fell into her arms, knocking her back so that they collapsed onto the floor together.

"Draco, what…" Ginny said, out of breath, as she struggled to get up. Draco was dead weight on top of her. She shifted and he tilted his head back to gasp for air, his grey eyes wide and shocked. "Oh, Merlin," Ginny breathed, her own eyes widening in horror. "Draco, what happened?"

Red blood soaked the front of the blonde's v-neck sweater. Ginny moved quickly, laying Draco on the carpet and fumbling in the pocket of her robes for her wand, remembering too late that she had left it upstairs in her room. Her hands flew to Draco's bloody sweater, where the crimson fluid was sticky and wet and quickly engulfed her probing fingers. Draco cried out in pain when she touched the right side of his lower chest, and Ginny's eyes grew even wider in her face as she realized the implications of so much blood.

"Ginny," Draco said breathlessly, his wild eyes focusing on her face bent over his. His silver-blonde hair was streaked with blood where he'd pushed it away from his forehead, and his pale skin was much whiter than normal, giving him the otherworldly look of a preternatural soul in torment. She saw that he was gasping for every breath, and she gave him a desperate look as tears came, unbidden, to her eyes. "I told you," Draco mumbled, his gaze clouding slightly. "I told you…"

He half-rose and Ginny tried to press him back onto the carpet but the Slytherin refused to cooperate. His eyes were brightening again. "What did you tell me?" she asked hopelessly, settling for trying to staunch his blood flow with her robes and giving a sob of terror when the blood began to drip from them to pool on the floor.

"I told you…" Draco's voice was so faint that Ginny had to bend close to his mouth to hear it. His hands grasped frantically at her shoulders and his fevered breath tickled her ear in an erratic rhythm as he went on. "I told you…that I never deserved it…I never…Ginny…"

Suddenly his back arched and his mouth opened up into a silent scream of agony. Ginny jerked back and clapped a hand over her mouth, the other hovering helplessly over Draco's chest. She watched in horror as, just as suddenly, he relaxed against the floor. A dark trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth and his eyes slowly glazed over.

Ginny sat there, frozen, and staring in disbelief. Finally, she closed her eyes and lowered the fingers of her left hand to rest over Draco's heart. When she found no heartbeat, a sound of muffled anguish escaped her mouth and her eyes flew open, automatically searching for reassurance from his face. But, of course, his face was still and his smoke-colored eyes gave her no hint that this was some kind of sick joke or surprise.

It _felt_ like a sick joke. Ginny rocked back on her heels and grabbed her stomach sure she was going to be ill. Draco looked far too peaceful lying in front of her, one arm fallen across his torso where it'd slipped from Ginny's shoulder. Ginny turned away and squeezed her eyes shut, her tears slipping down ashen cheeks. Draco had never been that peaceful; even when the Slytherin was silent he had the sort of charisma that tugged at the eye and captured it. But now… Ginny couldn't stand to see his body without the enigmatic spirit that usually filled it. It was wrong.

She opened her eyes and stared at the blood-stained carpet, feeling numb and wishing she could stop the sobbing sounds of hurt that were coming from her mouth. Everything was wrong, all wrong. Things like this just didn't happen without explanation. There had to be an explanation for the strangeness… for the dreamlike quality of everything… for how surreal everything still seemed to be…Draco couldn't yet be dead because she had only just realized what he felt that night outside the tower… and… _It was all wrong!_

-----

Ginny awoke with a start, her head jerking up from the textbook she'd been sleeping on. Looking around, she thought at first that it was a mistake. She was still in the Common Room and the fire was still crackling away in the fireplace across the room. She was still crying, and her thoughts were still muddled, but Draco wasn't there anymore.

She pushed back her chair and tried to dash the tears from her eyes, to no avail. She kept seeing Draco, covered in blood, his grey eyes dull and lifeless. She kept feeling the awful numbness of realization fill her chest and…

"Draco!" she cried suddenly and softly, looking around with the last shreds of hope. But he wasn't there… And she was sitting at a table full of homework…

Slowly Ginny sat back and looked at her hands. They were clean. There was no blood. She took a deep breath and glanced down at the carpet. It too was clean of any blood. And Ginny sighed, seeing at last that it had been a dream. There had been no strange duel between Harry and Draco, and the Slytherin Head Boy hadn't died in her arms in the middle of the Gryffindor Common Room.

"Ginny?"

Ginny's head snapped around to stare at the source of the sleepy voice that had said her name. Hermione rubbed her eyes wearily and got up from her chair by the fire, Crookshanks reluctantly leaving her lap as she stood.

"Ginny…" Hermione admonished gently, shaking off sleep and coming over to stand by her redheaded friend. "What are you still doing down here? It's nearly—" She gave a start when she caught sight of the clock on the wall. "—two in the morning!"

Ginny didn't answer, but stared at the older girl. She was torn between wanting to tell Hermione about her nightmare, and wanting to rush down to the Slytherin dungeons to make sure that it truly hadn't happened.

Hermione stared back for a moment, frowning. Then she reached forward and brushed the tears from Ginny's cheek. Ginny's eyes widened in alarm. "Oh!" said Hermione, and she rushed forward to embrace her. Ginny stood stock-still and let Hermione hug her tightly, before she felt something inside of her split wide open. The next thing she knew she was hugging the other girl back and sobbing uncontrollably onto her shoulder, trying to babble the entire story out in less than a minute.

Hermione, although caught up in her world of two with Ron, had been expecting Ginny to do this for quite some time now. She gently guided her over to a couch and sat her down, making soothing noises and patting the other girl's back. She couldn't understand a thing that Ginny was saying, but wanted her to get it all out of her system before they could talk about things rationally. When Ginny had slowed down to hiccupping and could no longer speak, Hermione let her go and drew back a little.

"What were you saying about Draco?" she asked, a crease forming in her forehead as her eyebrows drew together.

"That I was… wrong… and I think… I love him… too…" Ginny gasped between hiccups, her eyes downcast.

Hermione frowned. "That's what I thought you said," she muttered. Ginny glanced up at her in sudden surprise, realizing that what she had just confessed to Hermione was something she hadn't even confessed to herself. She gasped and Hermione looked up to see her white as a ghost and trembling.

"Oh, don't worry, Ginny," she said, waving her hand as though to dismiss the other's fears. "I knew it was a Slytherin you were seeing from that note Ella gave me about Halloween night. I'm just trying to get my mind around… Draco Malfoy."

Ginny made an indistinct sound in her throat and hurried to examine her feelings. Were they real? Was she really in love with Draco? And why hadn't she recognized it before that awful dream? Did it take her seeing him die to realize that she couldn't live without him? Oh, Merlin… The room spun around her as she stood up and took a few stumbling steps toward the staircase.

"What are you doing?" Hermione was now behind her, a worried ring to her voice. Ginny shook her head, a hand flying to her throat as she spun around and made for the Fat Lady instead.

"I have to go," she whispered, hurrying across the room.

"But, Ginny!"

Something in Hermione's voice brought everything inside of Ginny to a screaming halt. Turning around with her eyes closed, she winced, waiting for the inevitable.

But the shouting and the screeching about her being in love with a Slytherin and a Malfoy never came. Instead she heard a slightly frightened voice ask, "How did it happen?"

"How?" Ginny opened her eyes. Hermione was standing where she'd left her, her brown eyes shimmering in reflected firelight. Ginny's shoulders dropped as she uttered a half-hearted laugh. "Oh, Hermione. I don't even know. We were both at the Drowned Rat and…"

She told her the story briefly, sure that Hermione would keep her secret but not wanting to share too many details.

"…and then I woke up and realized that I…" She stopped suddenly and looked at the ground, unsure whether Hermione had grasped how significant Draco was in her life from the bare bones version of events she'd offered her.

"You realized that you felt the same way." Hermione shook her head. "Ginny… I know you don't want to hear this, but I wish you'd think about this. Draco Malfoy is still a Slytherin, no matter how well you think you might know him. Just look at what he did when you rejected him! Are you quite sure that you want to be in a relationship with someone capable of that kind of discrimination? Not to mention what your family and fellow housemates might do if they find out you're fraternizing with the enemy…"

Ginny looked up. "But Hermione, don't you get it? It doesn't matter that Draco is a Slytherin or a Malfoy. He doesn't like his family anyway, and he only reacted that way to my rejection because… well, he doesn't know how else to deal with things. And that's part of the reason that he likes me, Hermione. He likes that I can teach him those kinds of things without having to actually say anything. Just being around me… Just me being around him…" She smiled sadly and gave the portrait hole a yearning look. "We're only happy when we're with each other. Don't you feel something like that with Ron?"

Hermione gave her an astonished look, and then a slow nod. "But what about everyone else? They won't be happy about this."

"They don't have to know," Ginny replied a bit viciously. "Besides, look at the way you reacted! You're not trying to kill me."

Hermione frowned. "Still… Not everyone will—"

"Look. I know nothing about this is easy, Hermione. Just… please keep my secret?" Ginny waited for the other girl's nod before making her way again across the room to the portrait hole.

"But where are you going?" Hermione asked bewilderedly, looking at the clock again.

"I have to go tell Draco, of course!" Ginny exclaimed, and then she'd gone, disappeared into the darkness of Hogwarts' night.

Hermione let out a sigh she'd been suppressing and sank into the armchair behind her. Crookshanks jumped into her lap, purring loudly, and Hermione gave him a distracted scratch behind the ears.

"That's good for her, but, meanwhile, how am I supposed to get back to sleep?"

-----

Draco awoke with a sleepy start as someone eased shut the door to his bedroom. He hadn't been sleeping well for the past few weeks and was hardly surprised that he awoken so easily. He made out a dim figure in the darkness and raised his head up a bit to see more clearly. Just as he was thinking that Blaise was already asleep in the bed across the way and that maybe he ought to think about grabbing his wand, the person let out a little cry and flew toward him.

He managed a smothered yell of surprise as the girl threw herself on top of him. He tried to sit up, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly on the lips. Quite abruptly, Draco forgot where he was and what he was doing.

"Ginny?" he gasped, weak in amazement as she finally drew away from him. "What the—"

Ginny grinned crazily at him through the darkness, tears still shining upon her cheeks although she'd stopped crying the moment she saw Draco. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so, so, very sorry." She kissed him again, almost bruising his mouth with her voracity.

Draco's hands rose up between them and he pushed at her shoulders, detaching his mouth from hers. Thrilled as he was to have Ginny Weasley in his bed, apparently willing to snog him to death, he was a bit suspicious of this sudden turnaround. "What the hell is going on?" he hissed, squinting to see her without any light in the room.

Ginny laughed softly, under her breath, not bothered by his reservations. "I'll tell you what's going on," she replied, her hand finding his in the darkness. "I've just realized what a damn idiot I was being. Draco…" She drew close again, and he could feel the heat radiating off her. She'd obviously run all the way down to the dungeons. He'd forgotten that he'd even given her the password and told her where she could find him if she ever had reason. It seemed so long ago now… Almost a lifetime away. But with Ginny this close again, his anger was dissolving too quickly for him to even realize that he'd held on to it this long.

"I'm sorry about Halloween," she said then, and Draco realized that she didn't need to say any more. He'd heard everything in her voice, all of the confusion and denial and fear. But it was gone now. And they were together as they'd never been.

"I missed you," he said, and, instead of kissing her again, he drew her into his arms and held her tight against his chest. He couldn't ever remember wanting to hold someone so close in his life, but he felt that it was right. Ginny clung to him and her breath was shaky in his ear. She'd almost been scared that Draco wouldn't accept her after all. But now everything was right again…

"Draco? What's going on?" a tired voice demanded from across the room.

"Oh no," Draco groaned. "Ginny, quick, get under the covers." Wide-eyed, Ginny obliged Draco's command and squirmed beneath his blankets just as Blaise's wand flashed light at Draco's bed.

Draco blinked and shielded his eyes. Ginny's ragged breath was tickling his feet. "What are you doing, Zabini?" he whispered fiercely to his fellow Slytherin. "I'm trying to sleep over here." Ginny shifted uncomfortably and Draco seized her foot beneath the sheets to make her stop moving.

Blaise lowered his light. "Sorry, mate. I thought I heard a girl's voice."

"Well, unless you invited Jaclyn for a sleepover, you were probably dreaming," Draco retorted trying to sound annoyed, which wasn't too hard.

"Yeah… Well… Good night." The light disappeared and Blaise sank back against his pillow, already asleep again.

Ginny wriggled out of Draco's blankets and sat up, her hair disheveled, eyes wide and trembling. Draco leaned over and pulled his bed-curtains shut. "What's the matter?" he whispered as he grabbed his wand and performed a Silencing Charm around them.

Ginny's hand shook slightly as she reached up to push the hair out of her eyes. "It's just…" She unconsciously reached out a hand against his chest. Draco frowned. He grabbed her outstretched hand and looked at her intently.

"What? What is it?"

"Do you think it will always be this hard?" she whispered back, pressing her hand in his. "Do you think we'll always have to hide everything?"

Draco smiled at the thought of how easy their feelings now fit together. It was as if the rift between them had never existed at all. "I can think of a time when we won't have to," he said softly, masking his excitement. Ginny heard it in his voice anyway and smiled in spite of herself.

"The Yule Ball," they whispered together, and both of them grinned at the thought of flaunting their new relationship in front of everyone without anyone knowing who exactly they were.

"But what will we go as?" Ginny asked, leaning against him and resting her head on his shoulder.

"Who cares?" Draco replied. "We'll think of that tomorrow. Right now, we still have tonight. Do you wanna go somewhere were we can be alone?"

"But we are alone!" Ginny laughed quietly. Draco frowned at her and pointed though the curtains at the sleeping Blaise. She laughed again. "You worry too much. Who would dare to bother the infamous Draco Malfoy? Certainly not him. He's a loyal minion, from what I've seen."

"Loyal and nosy," Draco complained. "Remember at the Drowned Rat? He—"

Ginny rolled her eyes and Draco stopped. "Don't you care that we might still get caught, Ginny?" he whispered anxiously. "Like you said, this is still wrong…" At that, Ginny gave him a suddenly wicked grin.

"Yes, Draco, yes, it is. But you know what? It's the right kind of wrong." Draco blinked, startled by these words, before realizing that's exactly what it was. The right kind of wrong.

"This may be kind of preemptive…" he said, gazing at her in admiration. "But I think I may truly be in love with you."

Ginny's smile softened. She drew him down beside her so that they were face-to-face on the pillow. "Let's go to sleep forever and ever," she told him, reaching out to smooth the hair away from his face. "Let's stay here together and never wake up again."

"Never wake up again, huh? I could use some sleep." She smiled sleepily at him and Draco yawned, feeling nights upon nights of insomnia catching up with him. Sleeping forever really didn't sound quite so bad at the moment… His hand crept up beside him to catch Ginny's and they fell asleep that way, facing each other, their fingers knotted, and icy blonde hair mingled with fiery red on the pillow beneath their heads.

_A/N answered: No, of course not! Don't you know this is the happy part?_


	8. In Secrecy

_A/N: In which Life is Good._

****

**Chapter Eight: In Secrecy**

_"Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books; but love from love, toward school with heavy looks."_

-----

Ginny woke the next morning surrounded by warmth. Her eyelids fluttered open to be confronted by golden sunlight pouring through the curtains, and she smiled sleepily to herself to find Draco lying beside her on the bed, his arms wrapped protectively around her. She gently removed herself from his embrace and sat up to stretch. Yawning briefly, she looked down at Draco as he stirred. A small smile crossed his lips as she leaned over him and brushed his hair back from his forehead. She smiled as well, and leaned closer to gently kiss him goodbye. He murmured in protest when her lips left his, and his grey eyes opened fully to see her pulling the curtains around his bed open.

"It's Saturday," he objected, his voice still muted with sleep. "Do you have to go?" Ginny turned with a tender look for him and smiled sadly.

"Yes. Zabini there might wake up any minute." She leaned down and kissed him again. He reached for her arms and held her close for a moment before letting go. Her smile deepened.

"We'll see each other at breakfast," she promised, sliding off the bed and smoothing her rumpled clothes. Draco sat up.

"At breakfast!" he exclaimed bitterly. "Where we'll be separated by every hate that ever existed at this school, and unable to even come near each other, let alone talk together." He caught her troubled gaze, and sat up. "I'm sorry, Ginny. It won't be that bad. At least we can have our room on the third floor to ourselves."

Ginny sighed, and shook her head. "Hermione knows about us." His eyes widened, and she quickly sat down next to him, taking his hand in hers to reassure him. "It's okay. I had to tell her everything last night, but she's okay with it." She looked at him seriously, hazel eyes blazing with a sudden vigor of optimism. "She's okay with it, Draco! We might not have to hide from everyone forever. If she can understand then we have hope yet."

Draco took in the emotion of her words, let it wash through him. "She understands?" he asked tentatively. Ginny nodded, searching for the reflection of her optimism in his face. Suddenly, he smiled at her. Taking her face in his hands, he pressed a kiss upon her lips and whispered, "Then everything will work out okay. If one person can understand the love between a Slytherin and Gryffindor, then everyone else may yet."

Ginny beamed at him, and Draco fought to silence his inner objections. Maybe Hermione Granger understood, or thought she did, but he knew that no Slytherin would ever forgive him for this deadly transgression. Love with anyone outside his own House was forbidden to Draco and he knew it. Love with a Gryffindor, and, worse, a Weasley went beyond disgrace and dishonor. Any Gryffindor was a Slytherin's enemy, and any Weasley, a plague upon the pure-blood name. He would be cast out of all familiarity with his friends and family, if not locked up and physically punished for daring to think that he was above these sacred traditions. His parents would certainly disown him, and his father might go farther, no matter his mother's protests.

But Ginny grinning so hopefully at him made him want to scream defiance at his father and throw away his life, just to please her. He knew it was dangerous to be so caught up in another person's happiness as to forget his own, but Ginny's smile – her dancing eyes, her confident words – made him disregard these thoughts. He leaned forward and kissed her again, drinking in the forbidden richness of her mouth: a taste that ought to have been denied to him. What had started out chaste, turned passionate, and Draco found himself pulling away and panting for breath. Ginny did likewise, leaning against his shoulder as her face flushed.

"That was hardly appropriate for a love barely a day old," she said, breathing heavily. Draco looked at her out of the corner of his eye, found that she was smiling, and laughed with sudden pleasure.

"You were the one who spent the night in my bed," he accused, smirking at her. Who cared what his friends thought? Who cared what his parents were going to do? He had never been with someone who could make him this happy with a single expression. "Ginny," he declared, spellbound, and turned to her. "Ginny, I love you more than you'll ever know."

She echoed his laughter as he fell to covering her face in feathery kisses. "Draco!" she protested amiably, making no attempt to push him away. "Such a vow from one still young!"

"You're younger than me," he pointed out between kisses, making her twist with laughter as he tickled her skin with airy breath. "And the word of a Malfoy isn't to be taken for granted. I vow true."

She grasped him by the shoulders, finally making him stop, and looked him in the eyes. "Well, so do I," she stated, with a strange smile. "I love you, Draco. And to hell with everyone else; let's go down to the Great Hall together. Let's hold hands for them all to see."

Draco grinned to take the sting out of his words. "You know we can't."

She looked at him, and her strange smile slowly faded. "No, you're right. We can't." And if Draco was worried that her buoyant spirit had been crushed, his fears were allayed as she jumped up and swiftly kissed his cheek.

"I'll see you at breakfast, then?" she said, making for the door. Draco nodded silently, aware that his dazed grin was starting to look silly, but finding that he couldn't summon the emotion to care. Ginny shot him one last parting smile as she lingered in the doorway, and then she was gone.

Draco sat on his bed for several long minutes after she left, still feeling her lips pressed against his, still seeing her happy face, still hearing her words as she said, _I love you, Draco. And to hell with everyone else…_ He stared up at the ceiling and whispered a fervent prayer that he wasn't dreaming. Finally, he arose and went to his mirror, absently beginning his morning routine.

"Well!" a breathy voice exclaimed from the mirror. "Someone's been getting attention!"

Draco smiled at his reflection as he automatically fixed his hair and reached for his school uniform. The mirror continued to make its exclamations over his flushed appearance, and Draco continued to smile, blissfully unaware of his surroundings.

"So, you're in love with her, Malfoy?"

Draco jumped, his Head Boy badge slipping from his fingers and falling to the floor. Sitting on the edge of his own bed across the room, Blaise was staring at him with a dull look in his dark eyes.

Draco bent to retrieve his fallen badge. Aware of the precarious situation, but confident of his Slytherin superiority, he straightened and said in a neutral voice, "Sorry. I didn't hear you."

Blaise tilted his head slowly, studying Draco as if he had never seen him before. "Yes, you did," he said, voice flat.

Draco's pale eyes narrowed and he turned back to the mirror in order to pin his badge on correctly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

At once, Blaise bounded across the room, and grabbed Draco by the wrists. Once again, the unfastened badge clattered to the floor. Draco struggled to keep the expression of distaste on his face as he stared at the snarling Blaise. He was terrified of what his friend was capable of when pressed, and he knew that if he showed any weakness he'd be deposed by his housemates.

"That girl," Blaise growled. "She was a Gryffindor, wasn't she?"

Draco gritted his teeth and twisted away from Blaise, wrenching his wrists out of Blaise's grip. "What does it matter, Zabini?" he asked viciously. "It's no affair of yours." He summoned up the image of Ginny's smiling face, and found it in him to ignore Blaise and assume the masterful aura of indifference he was so famous for.

Blaise, seeing that he'd been beaten, sank into an armchair and watched Draco check his appearance in the mirror. Long minutes of silence passed as Draco carefully combed his hair and told himself to remain aloof. Finally, Blaise could stand it no more and said, "Do you really love her, Draco?"

It was the defeat in Blaise's voice that made Draco turn around. Had he been mistaken about a fellow Slytherin understanding? It wasn't like him to take such a chance but… He narrowed his eyes. "Would you condemn me for it, Blaise?" he asked seriously.

Blaise thought about it, obviously fighting some personal battle. "Who is she?" he inquired at last.

Draco studied his friend, trying to see past the cruel, dark-humored young man that everyone else saw, and see just the boy who had been one of his constant companions since he was eleven. "Do you love Jaclyn?" he asked, knowing the answer already.

"Yes," Blaise said without hesitation, defiance flaring in his eyes. Blaise's girlfriend, Jaclyn, was often shunned amongst the other Slytherins because she was Muggle-born. Blaise, a pure-blood, had taken a chance in dating her, and Draco had once been publicly opposed to Blaise's relationship with her. Now he could not blame the defensive wall that Blaise had instantly thrown up in response toDraco's question.

"I love this girl," Draco said then, knowing that he would be all right in admitting this to Blaise.

Blaise nodded. "A Gryffindor?" he asked, without animosity this time.

Draco watched his friend carefully, but didn't reply. Blaise's face underwent a myriad of expressions and Draco appreciated that in the end only acceptance remained. Then a spark of insight flared in his face. "It's not Hermione Granger, is it?"

Draco looked at him, stunned. "No," he laughed in disbelief. "It isn't."

"Oh…" Draco couldn't tell if Blaise seemed disappointed or relieved. "Who is it then?"

Draco shook his head. "You know enough."

Blaise rolled his eyes in familiarity with Draco's attitude.

Draco gave him a dark look. "I don't need you to understand, Zabini. I didn't even have to tell you." His grey eyes widened in uncharacteristic terror. "You won't tell my father?"

Blaise, slightly surprised by the fever in Draco's words, shook his head. He understood that Draco wanted to hide, and even though he had an inkling as to why, he was a loyal friend. He suddenly felt closer to his roommate than he ever had in the seven years they had known each other. "I promise," he assured him. "I won't even tell Jaclyn."

Draco gave him an odd look. Mentally, he was wondering at how wrong he had been about a Slytherin's inability to understand. Blaise no doubt knew that it _was_ a Gryffindor. And then he realized that _he _was a Slytherin, and it had been _he_ who had fallen in love with Ginny in the first place. Perhaps he truly did underestimate his Housemates.

-----

Ginny slipped past the Fat Lady's portrait, and waltzed across the common room floor, full of her newfound happiness. Life was, for the first time in her memory, going completely right for the youngest Weasley. She had found her soulmate, and together they could get through anything that life might throw at them. The future was looking brighter by the minute.

Caught up in her elated meanderings, Ginny didn't notice Hermione sitting in a chair by the fire until it was too late for her to escape detection.

"Good morning, Hermione," she said pleasantly, stopping in her tracks, and trying to erase the idiotic smile from her face.

" 'morning," Hermione greeted her suspiciously. She looked around and lowered her voice. "Have you been with Malfoy _all_ night?"

Ginny glanced at the clock, noticed with a thrill that it proclaimed the time to be seven in the morning, and gave brief speculation as to why no one else was downstairs yet. "Yes," she said, and a note of defiance entered her voice. "So what?"

Hermione stood up, shaking her head. "How long have you known this boy, Ginny? How can you be this serious about him so soon?"

Ginny's eyes darkened as she looked at the older girl. "I don't have to explain myself to you, Hermione," she said, feeling something inside of her start up in rebellion.

"Yes, you do!" Hermione drew Ginny away from the stairs, and looked at her out of the corner of her eye. "If I have to cover up for you, then I want to know what's going on."

Ginny crossed her arms. Hermione _was_ the only other person who knew about her and Draco after all. To alienate her might be the suicide of their so-far brief relationship. "All right, fine. Yes, I stayed with him all night." At Hermione's look of askance she added, "No, we didn't do anything. We just… talked. We're in love, Hermione, do you understand? I need you to help me make this okay with everyone else."

Hermione shook her head again, and brushed the hair from her face. "You know what you're getting yourself into, Ginny? I don't want to see you get hurt." Ginny swallowed back a lump in her throat at the worry that shone in Hermione's eyes and nodded.

"I know, Hermione. So does Draco. But we can make this work. We can be accepted." She sounded like she was pleading even to her own ears.

Hermione studied Ginny's face, and saw the desperation there. The younger girl was holding onto this with every last fiber of her being. She could see the redhead's determination in this venture was not about to flag any time soon. Draco Malfoy must have proved to her that he was quite a different person from the snot rag that the Gryffindors hated so much if his evident love could provide such a surge of devotion in Ginny Weasley. "Okay," Hermione said gently. "Okay, Ginny. I'll help you. Are you going to—?"

The sound of footsteps on the stairs made her stop mid-question. Students were beginning to make their way down to the common room, on their way to breakfast. Hermione glanced at them and sighed.

"We can talk later," she said. "I need to go get dressed anyway." Ginny nodded and watched her head up the stairs. Looking down at her own wrinkled clothes that she'd worn the previous day, she darted after her friend.

Regaining her cheerful mood, she sashayed into her dorm room and found four pairs of eyes staring at her.

"Well, here she is!" Miranda exclaimed as Ginny turned to close the door. "She's back at last!"

Aubrey, half-way through pulling on her stockings, laughed at the faraway look on Ginny's face. "At last, indeed," she giggled. "Our little girl is growing up." And she took a moment to clasp her hands together and give a matronly sigh of loss.

Ginny ignored her friend's teasing, and went to her trunk, humming happily. Catherine picked up on the tune and began to sing along with a smile. Ginny darted her a grin, and the two girls nodded in understanding as Catherine realized the important difference in Ginny's mood. All Miranda and Aubrey saw was Ginny returning from a late-night excursion with a boy, but Catherine saw the truth of the matter – that Ginny was as much in love with her mystery man as Catherine was with Colin. She felt a new connection with her red-haired friend, and knew Ginny had at last forgiven her.

Ella, her nose stuck in a book already, took a moment to smile to herself. She knew that she and Harry could stop worrying about their friend now. It looked like everything was going to be all right.

-----

At breakfast in the Great Hall, Ginny found it hard to keep her gaze from stealing back to Draco any time it wandered. He seemed to be having the same problem because every time their eyes met, the two would blush and glance away, only to find themselves staring at each other once more.

Every time Hermione noticed this, she swatted Ginny on the arm.

It was Ron and Harry's talk of the upcoming Quidditch game that made her tear her gaze away at last. Ginny had made the team as a chaser when Alicia, Angelina, and Katie left, and this was the first time that Gryffindor was going to play Slytherin this year. She wondered how distracting it would be to fly with Draco on the field too, but shooed the thought from her mind, trying to focus on the strategies that the two boys were discussing for the upcoming game.

"I think you should try that new move you learned, Harry," her brother was saying. "Anything to knock that bastard off his broom will be fine."

Realizing that Ron was referring to Draco, Ginny felt her face heat and suppressed the urge to rise to Draco's defense. He _had_ been truly awful to the Gryffindors for the past month anyway, and she really couldn't blame them for wanting a little revenge. Looking at the vicious nods of approval around the table, she wondered how far some of them might go to get that revenge. Surely no one would try anything drastic, she reassured herself. They might have hated Draco Malfoy and his Slytherin cronies, but surely, Gryffindors wouldn't fall back on sabotage just to get revenge.

-----

Draco watched Ginny converse with her friends until they all got up and left to go to their classes. She stole one last look at him before she went, and Draco smiled at her. She managed to return his grin just before she was hauled off by the vigilant Hermione.

"Draco," Grahm said, exasperated. "You weren't listening again. What's wrong with you this morning?"

"Nothing," Draco replied as he finally heard his cousin speak. He caught Blaise's look of suspicion, and raised his eyebrows slightly in acknowledgement. The brooding Slytherin had followed Draco's gaze and was staring at the Gryffindors with a frown on his face.

Grahm threw up his hands. "I give up!" he declared, looking back and forth between Draco and Blaise. "I don't have time to guess what you two are up to without me, and I don't like being ignored." He moved to stand up, gathering the papers he'd carefully laid in front of Draco into his arms.

"We weren't ignoring you, Grahm," Blaise said abruptly as Draco hauled the sixth year back into his chair by the back of his robes. "You were telling us about your plans for the Quidditch match on Saturday, right?" Draco nodded, trying to look like he had paid attention. How could he have forgotten this weekend's Quidditch match? Suddenly the prospect of flying against Ginny and her housemates sickened him. He couldn't believe that just yesterday he'd been boasting about how badly Gryffindor was going to lose.

"Right," Grahm said slowly, still looking at the two of them with obvious distrust. Blaise eyed Draco as Grahm spread his papers out again, and began outlining his plan with a quill. "We'll slip Potter the potion with his breakfast Saturday morning. It shouldn't be too hard for me to—"

"Wait!" Draco said. "Wait just a minute…" He couldn't remember what the potion they were supposed to 'slip Potter' was, but it couldn't be anything good. "I've changed my mind. I don't think we should sabotage Potter before the game. It needs to be a fair match."

"Fair!?" Grahm cried, outraged at the thought. Blaise darted Draco a similair look; this could be the end of the road for them where the Quidditch Cup was concerned. They'd beaten Hufflepuff last month, but already lost to Ravenclaw, so this match was critical.

"Yes. It should _appear_ to be a fair game." Draco drew them in with a conspiratorial whisper. "Listen, guys, I'm Quidditch captain, and what I say goes. Blaise, tell the others that all sabotage is off limits. In the game, anything goes, but nothing beforehand, okay?" Blaise nodded, and moved off to tell the others on the team what Draco had said. Grahm shook his head at his cousin, and leaned back in his chair.

"And I had such a good prank all worked out for those damned Chasers," he grumbled. Draco shot him a warning look, and Grahm grimaced at him. "What you say goes," he parroted. "I just hope you know that the chances of you winning are—"

"Don't tell me," Draco interjected, knowing full well that Grahm's computation was probably right, and not wanting to hear it.


	9. In the Air

_A/N: Because every good HP fic deserves a good Quidditch match._

****

**Chapter Nine: In the Air**

_"My life were better ended by their hate, than death prorogued wanting of thy love."_

-----

For the next few days, Grahm took Draco's command to heart and did nothing whatsoever to sabotage the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He did, however, resent the fact that he had so many great plans put on hold, and spent every free moment he had terrorizing the rest of the school to make up for it.

On Wednesday, he charmed several dozen clapboard erasers to follow the Ravenclaws to all their classes and drum up clouds of dust every time one of them tried to speak. He bewitched the Hufflepuff's dinner table to float up to the ceiling every time food appeared on it, and none of the teachers could figure out how to bring it down again. Every spell they tried caused the table to shake down showers of scrambled eggs at breakfast, peanut butter sandwiches at lunch, and pot roast at dinner. Somehow, he managed to frighten the Fat Lady away from her portrait, and none of the Gryffindors could get into their common room all day because none of the other portraits would volunteer to be her substitute (Sir Cadogan had already been denied the privilege).

Not being caught on Wednesday, Grahm continued his reign of terror into Thursday. Every door within the school had been enchanted to rain a torrent of water upon every student who wasn't a Slytherin. The teachers spent most of their day dealing with students complaining that their homework had been ruined by water, and that they needed some decent drying spells.

Friday morning however, the rain clouds had gone. The day ran smoothly until lunchtime, when Grahm was studying alone in the library. All too soon, he'd transfigured one of the tables into a green dragon and was conducting it in a mad rampage. After wrecking the library, the dragon escaped into the halls where it menaced the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws and shot silver flames at all the Gryffindors it came across. But Madam Pince had already caught Grahm in the act, and, once he had restored her library for her, she marched him up to the Headmaster's office where he got three weeks worth of detention and lost the Slytherins almost two hundred House points. The Slytherins weren't angry though; they made up for it in Potions where it transpired that even the basest amongst them could do no wrong, much to the other three House's outrage. Whatever the consequences, Grahm was highly satisfied with himself, and the Slytherins threw a party in his honor. Dumbledore did nothing to intervene in any of this, and the day of the Quidditch match dawned with many a student plotting their own personal revenge against the Slytherins.

Draco and Ginny spent Friday night alone in the unused classroom on the third floor. Ginny sat next to the window in silence, staring at the Quidditch pitch. Draco was trying to sketch her expression, but her pensive frown kept turning into a smile beneath his pencil. Finally, as he wasn't much of an artist anyway, he gave it up and crept to her side, entwining his arms around her waist as he leaned his cheek against her shoulder. Ginny turned and kissed the top of his head, before resuming her stare out the window.

"Do you want to talk?" he asked softly, aware that she was struggling with inner demons.

"About what?" she replied absently.

Draco puffed out a breath against the window, and watched the spread of condensation on the glass. "We could decide what to dress as for the Yule Ball. It's next week, you know."

Ginny smiled. "I'd almost forgotten," she said. Draco smiled because she was smiling, and wished more than anything that they could just go as themselves. It'd been naught but a week since Ginny had come to her senses, and the two were enjoying the kind of easy-going love that was hard for most people to find. It only furthered the idea in Draco's mind that they were soulmates.

"I know what _you_ should go as," Ginny announced, breaking Draco's reverie. She laughed a bit and tapped his nose. "Remember what you told me that night on the roof? Before you kissed me?"

Draco didn't have to think about it too hard. That night was forever etched into his memory. "You think I should go as a vampire?" he asked her, incredulous.

She grinned up at him. "Why not? It would show everyone the 'real' you."

"The real me…" Draco wrinkled his forehead. "I don't know…"

"Oh, come on!" Ginny cried, escaping his embrace and standing up. "Let's give them what they least expect – a Draco Malfoy without illusion."

Draco sighed, leaning against the cold window. "But then you'd have to go as yourself."

She frowned.

"Because you'll be with me," Draco elaborated.

A radiant look blossomed upon the redhead's face. She blushed and turned away from him, trying to hide it. Draco smiled and stood up. "No, really," he said, gathering up his sketches. "What should I go as?"

Ginny seated herself on one of the empty desks, and considered Draco with a calculating gaze. He stopped what he was doing and struck a pose for her, making her laugh. "How about Prince Charming?" she giggled. "Don Juan? Eros?" He made a face and shook his head at each one, recognizing the names she had learned from her Muggle Studies class. "Romeo?" she offered finally.

"Romeo!" he exclaimed. "What? Would you dress me in tights, and commit me to an untimely death?" Ginny laughed all the harder at the indignation on his face, and nearly fell off the desk.

"You!" she gasped. "In tights!" She pressed her hands to her mouth in an attempt to control her mirth, and merely succeeding in making Draco quirk his eyebrows at her in confusion.

"What's wrong with tights? I'd probably look damn good in them," he told her confidently, promptly making Ginny lose all self-control and fall to the floor with the force of her laughter.

-----

Saturday dawned unusually warm for the time of year. As Draco stepped out onto the Quidditch pitch, he took note of the fact that most of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were wearing red and gold in blatant blazes of color. He spotted Grahm sitting in the stands, and silently cursed the boy's untrained genius. If only he'd used his brains to see what he had cost the Slytherins this morning… Draco stopped, mid-thought, and took a more calculating view of his young cousin's actions. Yes, perhaps he had known. Perhaps he had done it to punish Draco for his lack of Slytherin manner these past days. Perhaps he thought Draco had become too weak to be the leader of their House anymore, and was challenging his authority. It was something that a Slytherin would do after all, and Draco had to admit that Grahm had never been one to have his intelligence overlooked by anyone, including someone who was not only family, but friend as well.

He cast his eyes toward the Gryffindor team, just now exiting the locker room, and caught sight of Ginny's red hair as she followed Harry out onto the pitch. At least he knew going into it that the game was going to be hell. He touched his wrist guards, absentmindedly adjusting them, and led his team out to where Madam Hooch was waiting.

"All right," she said as Draco and Harry stepped together and shook hands. As both of them were new captains this year, Madam Hooch still felt the need to spell things out for them. "Play fairly," she said, glaring at each of them in turn. Draco sneered in order to keep up pretenses, and still felt a brimming of satisfaction when Harry's green eyes went flinty as he threatened under his breath, "Feeling lucky, Potter?"

Draco turned back to his team with a smirk, ignoring the Gryffindor's muttered retort. Madam Hooch blew her whistle and the game began in earnest.

"Slytherin's in possession of the quaffle," the voice of Stewart Ackerly, the Ravenclaw boy in charge of providing the commentary at Quidditch matches, announced excitedly. And no wonder. Draco circled the pitch on his broomstick, eyeing Harry warily. This game was no doubt going to be one of the bloodiest games ever played at Hogwarts if the way students had been acting in the hallways lately was any indication of their feelings in the game.

As if thinking about it made it happen, a Gryffindor Beater sent a well-aimed Bludger at one of the Slytherin Chasers, and she only pulled away just in time. The Bludger screamed past her ear by mere millimeters. Draco cursed as his teammate swayed on her broom, and the Quaffle was taken by one of the Gryffindors.

Caught off guard by the excellent Gryffindor Chasers, Slytherin's Keeper let in the first goal of the game and the stands erupted with cheers. Draco touched his wrist guards again, and nudged his broom a little higher up. He eyed the crowd below him with wariness. A tension filled the air that reminded him of the atmosphere before a duel. Things were about to explode, and he didn't want to be distracted from looking for the Snitch. The sooner he ended this game, the better. Ginny was down there and if he saw her hurt, he wasn't sure what he would do. But he trusted that, whatever it was, he would be revealing their secret, and that was unimaginable when house hostilities were running this high.

"That's ten-zero, Gryffindor!" Ackerly declared as the stands let out a roar of approval. "Slytherin in possession… And the Quaffle is stolen by Ginny Weasley! She barrels down the pitch and passes to Dennis Creevy… And it's Weasley, Creevy, Weasley, Creevy…Goal! Gryffindor has scored again!"

Draco shut his ears to the noise below, and cast his eyes about in search of that bit of gold which would make it a fast game.

But Draco couldn't find the Snitch, and neither, it seemed, could Harry. They circled the pitch, occasionally shouting insults to each other, and dodging the Bludgers each team tried lobbing at them now and then. Below, the game was turning into a truly bloody fray. Penalty after penalty was called as Beaters struck at Keepers, and Chasers threw the Quaffle at the Beaters' heads. Madam Hooch's whistle pierced the noise of the crowd every few minutes. Ackerly was becoming more and more edgy as the game went on, reporting each new brutality with a shriller voice as he was shocked by the player's cruelty. Several Chasers had to be replaced by substitutes, and, more than once, Draco's teammates pleaded with him to call a timeout. But Draco only shook his head, not daring to take his eyes from his search for more than a minute.

Some three hours after the game began, a dark shape zoomed up beside Draco. It was Blaise, who was a Beater on the team, and he looked livid. Blood dripped down the side of his face from a blow he'd taken earlier, and his eyes were wild, the whites showing all around his dark irises.

"What is it?" Draco shouted, striving to be heard over the noise of the crowd below as Gryffindor scored a goal, making the score 230-220 in their favor.

"We can't keep going on like this!" Blaise shouted back, leaning forward over his broomstick and beating back a Bludger that was flying in their direction. "We've just lost our best Chaser! We need you to find that Snitch!"

"Well, thank you for pointing out the obvious," seethed Draco. "Get back into the game, Zabini. You're not doing any good up here."

Blaise's mouth curled into a sneer as he said, "Stop screwing around, Draco. Get Potter out of the game so we can win! You know _they_ won't accept anything else." And he pointed down at the shrieking crowd of Slytherin green and silver who were cheering as the rest of the Slytherin team managed to topple the Gryffindor Keeper, one Phineas Casey by name, from his broom with a slough of illegal dung bombs. Madam Hooch went racing for them, her cheeks red from blowing so hard on her whistle, and a flustered group of teachers ran out onto the field to retrieve the fallen Keeper and take him to the hospital wing.

And then Draco saw the Snitch.

It was the first time in his life that he'd ever spotted the Snitch without Harry anywhere nearby. Ignoring Blaise's startled cry, he raced past him and went speeding for the glittery object hovering near the tail of Madam Hooch's broomstick. Halfway there, he heard a muffled oath behind him and saw Harry drawing close out of the corner of his eye. Hurtling through the air faster than he'd ever imagined he could ever fly, Draco stretched out an arm, his senses lost in the thrill of the chase. Everything had ceased to exist except for him and the Snitch. He was going to beat Harry Potter!

-----

"Now," the Ravenclaw whispered. "Do it now."

"But I—" The Hufflepuff hesitated.

"Remember everything he's put us through! Do it!" the Gryffindor urged, gritting teeth and staring at the form of Draco Malfoy as he tore through the air above them.

The Hufflepuff gave up with an agonized groan of resignation, and muttered the words of the spell, white light shooting from the tip of the stolen wand in his hands.

-----

Ginny watched in half-horror, half-admiration as her boyfriend sped toward the Snitch. On the one hand, it looked like Gryffindor was about to lose the match, but on the other hand it was rare to see anyone but Harry fly as well as Draco flew now. Ginny closed her eyes, her heart rising in her throat.

Suddenly everyone sitting in the stands let out a scream of dismay. Ginny's eyes flew open in time to see the end of a flash of light that had enveloped Draco's body. She shrieked as the blonde tumbled from his broom and plummeted to the ground below. Harry, who had been close behind Draco, seemed to have gone temporarily blind. He veered off course, his broomstick obviously out of control.

"Come on, Ginny!" Dennis Creevy yelled at her as he sped off to help Harry.

But Ginny didn't hear him. Gripping her broom handle so hard that her knuckles turned white, she dove downwards, toward Earth. She hit the ground running, and struggled to get through the crowd of students and teachers pouring onto the Quidditch pitch. Just when she had reached the ring of people surrounding the spot where Draco had fallen, someone caught her by her uniform and she was yanked backwards. Scrambling to her feet, she looked up to find Hermione standing there.

"What are you doing?" she hissed, pulling Ginny away from the crowd. "You can't go to him now."

"But, Hermione!" She was almost in tears, trying to fight off Hermione's hand on her shoulder.

Hermione shushed her. She made a path through the anxious students who were on their tip-toes trying to see Draco, and hustled Ginny off the field and into the locker room. She let Ginny sink to her knees once they were safely hidden from view, and crouched beside her, watching the younger girl fight to keep from breaking down.

"Don't worry, Ginny," she tried to soothe her, patting her on the back. "I'm sure he's fine. The teachers saw him in time to break his fall."

"But the light," Ginny gasped. "What was that? Did it hurt him? Merlin, Hermione, I've got to see if he's all right!" She struggled to stand, and began crying harder when her knees shook so much that she couldn't. Images of her nightmare from the previous week were flooding her mind.

"Shh, be quiet!" Hermione said suddenly, staring at the door. "Someone's coming!" She helped Ginny to a bench, and they sat down just as the door opened to admit a wild-looking Ron and Gryffindor's other two Chasers, Dennis Creevy and Natalie McDonald.

Ron was breathing hard, but he looked triumphant. "We've won the game," he announced, "Harry held on long enough to catch the Snitch."

"Brilliant," Ginny said listlessly, wiping her eyes with the heels of her palms. Ron gave her an odd look.

"Are you okay, Ginny?" Natalie asked. "Harry's all right, if that's what you're worried about. And so is Phineas."

Ginny swiped a hand through the air to show that she wouldn't have cared if their Seeker and Keeper were both being instated as the new gods of Mount Olympus. Hermione grabbed that hand and gave Ginny a not-so-subtle glare.

Ron frowned and sat down next to the two girls. "Well, what are you crying about?"

Ginny yanked her hand away from Hermione and stood. "Nothing. I'm not crying. See?" She glared at Ron with red-rimmed eyes.

Ron drew back from his little sister's vehemence. "Okay…" he said slowly, standing as well. "I'm just gonna go check on Harry," he continued, edging out the door. Dennis quickly followed him, and Natalie retreated to the far side of the locker room to change out of her sweat-soaked Quidditch uniform. Ginny scrubbed her cheeks free of tears and then jammed her hands in her pockets.

"Sorry," she said, sighing. "I shouldn't have done that."

Hermione nodded, but smiled. "I'm sure he's fine," she whispered. "I'll go check if you like."

"Please?" Ginny said, eyes shining. "I need to change and…" She trailed off, staring at the locker room blankly.

"I'll be right back," Hermione promised. She patted Ginny on the shoulder, and slipped out the door. Ginny sighed again, and forced the image of Draco's bloodstained and lifeless body from her head. She slowly began to strip off her gloves.

-----

Draco awoke to the sounds of voices.

"…lucky whoever did this knew what they were doing! That spell is unstable at the best of times, and attempting it from the stands when the target is a moving object…" Draco could almost hear the head shake.

"It's well that we were already on the field when it happened or we might not have been able to save him," another voice added.

"Yes," someone agreed. "And well that no one died today when so much hatred was in the air."

Ah… He knew that last voice. It was Professor Dumbledore. Hearing that, he identified the others as Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout. Wondering if he was completely surrounded, he smiled when he heard Professor Snape intervene to coldly say, "It wouldn't have happened if we'd punished them from the beginning, Albus. You were the one who let this continue."

The shrill voice of Professor McGonagall retorted, "I didn't see you trying to help, Severus. Awarding fifty points to a student for _taking out his book_. You should be ashamed!"

Draco imagined Professor Snape's cool sneer as he replied, "Not half as ashamed as I'd be with students who try to sabotage a Seeker and can't even properly cover their tracks. Although they were smart enough to use someone else's wand…" he mused.

He heard an exasperated little sigh and then Professor Sprout saying, "It wasn't just a Gryffindor, Severus, but a Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff too. And you know very well that they only did it because of _your_ student's violent behavior in school."

"Practical jokes," Professor Snape said.

"Violence," the Headmaster interjected. "And it won't be tolerated anymore. The three young collaborators will be denied the privilege of attending the Yule Ball. And anyone hereafter committing a crime against another House in this school is to be expelled. We can't have this at Hogwarts."

There were murmurs of general agreement all around, and then the door opened and Draco heard the sounds of footsteps going out. He opened his eyes fully and saw that he was in the hospital wing, tucked into a crisp white bed, and wearing a pair of striped pajamas that most definitely were not his. He moved to sit up, and winced with the pain it brought to his head.

"There now," the voice of Madam Pomfrey soothed as she bustled toward him with a tray. It was laden with what looked like dinner, and a goblet full to the brim with smoking silver liquid. "Eat your supper, and drink this, Mr. Malfoy. It will take the night for the remainder of the spell to wear off, but you'll be right as rain in the morning."

"What happened?" Draco asked her, his voice unnaturally scratchy. He frowned and touched his throat.

Madam Pomfrey sighed. "Your fellow students decided to resort to spells of violence, rather than see you win, Mr. Malfoy." She clucked and shook her head, smoothing his bed sheets and motioning for him to eat. "I don't know what's come over everybody, but I've had more students in here for hexes lately than I even know what to do with. They used a freezing spell against you," she told him, and smiled gently. "But it wasn't strong enough for its full effect, so you'll be all right very soon." She patted his shoulder, and left.

Staring in bemusement at her retreating form, Draco began to wonder what _exactly _had happened. The last thing he remembered was his fingers brushing the tiny golden wings of the Snitch. But Pomfrey said he'd had a freezing spell cast upon him…

"We lost?" he whispered to the emptiness of the room. Bitter disappointment flooded through him.

"Damn right, you lost," a voice said at his side. Draco jumped, nearly spilling the contents of the goblet, and moaned at the spasm of pain that blossomed behind his forehead.

Ginny shook off the Invisibility Cloak, and appeared with a frown of concern. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

He waved her off, and summoned a smile for her. "It's okay," he said, still wincing. "I didn't expect you, is all."

"Mmm." She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at him for a long moment. He stared back, grateful to know that she hadn't been hurt in the game, and seemed only concerned for him, which meant that everything else was probably all right too. Finally, she said, "I think you were right."

"Huh?" He picked up the goblet and stared into its smoking depths. Was he really supposed to drink this foul substance?

"You would look good in tights."

He spluttered, and she laughed. Leaning forward to kiss his cheek, she gave him an affectionate look. "I'm glad you're all right, Draco. I was very worried."

"You were, were you?" he muttered, not looking at her, but eyeing the strange drink again.

Ginny nodded. "Hermione had to convince me that you weren't dead before I stopped trying to get to you. Think of the disaster I could have caused!" Her eyes lowered to his chest for a moment.

Draco echoed her nod. "Good thing you listen to Hermione," he said. Her eyes lifted to stare at him, as he swallowed his ominous feelings and drank the entire goblet in one gulp.

"Yes, it is good," Ginny agreed, still looking at him suspiciously.

"What?" he said when he'd stopped cringing with the taste of the awful drink.

"Are you angry with me or something?"

"No," he said evenly. "Did you hear what Professor Dumbledore said?"

"About students being expelled? Yes, I did." Ginny's eyes darkened. "And it's about time he did something about this useless fight between our Houses too. He should've done it a long time ago."

Draco leaned back into the pillows and shrugged. Ginny frowned at him. He raised an eyebrow, and her frown melted into a smile.

"Ah…" she said. "You're sore about losing, aren't you?"

Draco couldn't help exploding. "Who, me? Draco Malfoy who's never caught the Snitch in a game against Gryffindor yet, despite having played against them for six years of his life? Draco Malfoy, who's never won a game against the famous and good Harry Potter? Draco Malfoy, who can't win a Quidditch match because so many people hate him that they curse him before he can close his hand? You're bloody right I'm sore!"

"Shush," Ginny laughed. Draco grimaced at her, and was sorry for yelling. "It's your own fault so many people hate you. Look at me! I used to hate you. It's because you never let anyone in, Draco. They don't see _you_; all they see is an extension of your father."

He sighed. "I know. But that's why I have you, right? I'll wear tights if you want me to," he allowed.

"Draco!" She grinned. "I don't want you to. I still think you should be a vampire. Besides, I already have a costume all planned for myself."

"You do?" His curiosity was aroused. "What is it?"

"Uh uh." She shook her head. "You can't see it until next Friday."

He was about to make a clever retort to that, when another spasm of pain passed through him. Groaning, he pushed the dinner tray away and drew the blankets over his head. Ginny bit her lip, trying not to giggle at him.

"Okay, Draco. Sleep it off. I'll see you tomorrow." She kissed the top of his head through the sheet and swirled the Invisibility Cloak over her shoulders.

-----

"So. This is who has been stealing my cloak."

Ginny, who had just taken off the object in question, whirled around to find Harry standing by the fireplace. She was surprised to find him here; it was past eleven at night and she had only just returned from her visit to see Draco.

Blushing violently, she folded up the cloak and pressed it into his outstretched hands. "I'm sorry, Harry," she said. "I needed it for…Um…" She hesitated as there was no good lie she could think of to tell him.

He sighed as he stared at her. "If you needed it, why didn't you just ask if you could use it?" he inquired, green eyes sparkling in the light of the flames. "I wouldn't have said no, Ginny. Why didn't you ask?"

"I…" Ginny stared back at him. Obviously, she hadn't asked because of the questions it would raise; where was she going and why didn't she want to be seen? "I don't know, Harry. I'm sorry."

"Ginny…" He motioned for her to sit down. She did, and he sat next to her on the couch she'd chosen. "I wanted to talk to you about something. You see, lately I—" He hesitated, and Ginny was startled to see that he suddenly appeared nervous about something.

"We're good friends, right, Gin?" he asked her.

"The best of friends, Harry," she replied, wondering what this was all about.

"Well – and please don't hate me for this! – I think that maybe we could be more than friends. I…" He paused, the continued in a rush. "Do you want to go to the masquerade with me?" Not allowing time for her to reply, he went on. "We've spent so much time together lately that I feel as though we could have a lot of fun. And we don't have to call it a date if you don't want to, but could you, I mean, would you… please… go with me?" He broke off, and gazed at her hopefully.

"Harry, this is really… um… I am at a loss for words," she said at last. He looked bemused for a moment.

"Is that a 'yes'?"

Ginny's throat constricted. "I'm sorry, Harry. Any year but this and I would have been thrilled to go with you! The truth is that I'm in love with someone, and we're going to the ball together. I'm really sorry, Harry. You know you're like a brother to me. And I'll always be there if you need me, but…" She trailed off, her heart breaking for the look of loss on Harry's face. She knew exactly how he felt.

"No," he said, struggling to smile. "Don't be sorry. I'm glad you've found someone already. I can see he makes you happy."

Ginny gave him a sad look, and lowered her eyes. "You have no idea," she whispered.

"Do I know who he is?"

Ginny' head snapped up to find an expression of polite wonder on Harry's face. She hesitated, then said, "I can't say."

Looking bewildered, Harry tilted his head. "Okay, Ginny. If that's all you want to tell me, I guess that's fine." She nodded, hoping he wasn't going to try and guilt her into saying any more. Being true to his gentlemanly self, Harry did not pressure her. Instead, he took a deep breath and touched her hand. "But if you ever want to talk, I'm here to listen. You know that, right?"

"Right," she replied gratefully. "Thanks for understanding, Harry." She rose, and kissed his cheek. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," he echoed, watching her leave. When she'd gone, he leaned back into the cushions of the sofa, and heaved a sigh. If only he'd been able to tell her just how very much he was in love with her. Every day since their return from summer break, Harry had tried to convince himself that his obsession with Ron's sister was just a stupid crush that would pass in time, but it had been nearly three months and, try as he might to look at other girls, he couldn't stop himself from returning to her. It seemed like every moment he spent in her presence only made him love her more. Every move, every word, was more endearing than the last. It'd nearly killed him to watch her fading away this past month, becoming only a shell of her former self. Then, within this past week, she'd come alive again. And he now knew what had been the cause of her deterioration and recent revival. It had been another boy; someone who Ginny was in love with, someone who made her happy, someone who Harry very much wanted to be.

Sinking into the sofa, Harry stared at the shadows of the fire dancing on the ceiling and wondered who it was.


	10. In the Open

_A/N: I could have danced all night..._

****

**Chapter Ten: In the Open**

_"At my poor house, look to behold this night Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light."_

**-----**

After the Quidditch match, the week passed in fitful bursts. Dumbledore's edict had been issued throughout the Houses, but that didn't stop many Slytherins from trying to avenge their fallen leader. Although Draco was out the hospital wing the next morning, no fewer than ten different attempts were made to punish his adversaries as they sat in detention Saturday night. Teachers were kept busy in the following days hopping from one malicious situation to another. No House lacked students willing and devious enough to try and outsmart the faculty in an effort to harm another House. Although it was three Houses against one, the Slytherins managed to produce the best connivers of treachery and the war raged on. Soon it was Friday night, one day before winter vacation, and the evening of the Yule Ball was at hand. Not one student had been caught red-handed, so no one had been expelled, and the entire student body was in a roaring fever of unrest.

For the Yule Ball everyone simply cast spells to conjure up costumes and transform their faces and figures, but Ginny decided to make a real outfit so she could keep it after the night was over. It was an impressive piece of work that kept her busy for most of the day in an effort to make it perfect.

Her friends hovered behind her as she slipped into the dress and pulled her hair back.

"You look…" Catherine started, but her jaw fell and she was speechless.

"…beautiful?" Ella offered, craning around Catherine, Aubrey, and Miranda so that she could see Ginny's reflection in the mirror.

"Like a princess," Aubrey agreed, touching a sleeve of Ginny's dress.

"More than that," Miranda declared. "Like a goddess."

Ginny blushed, letting her hair fall against her shoulders. "You're exaggerating," she said modestly. Catherine shook her head, and Miranda snorted in disgust.

"Believe me, Ginny; if I looked that good in a dress I made myself, I wouldn't be going to this masquerade in a disguise." She raised her eyebrows at her friend knowingly, and pulled out her wand. "As it is, I'm no competition. But that's why we have magic." She whispered a spell and red light sparkled from her wand, obscuring her body from the rest of them. When the crimson taint had gone, Miranda had been transformed into a dainty girl with elfish features and a merry smile, dressed in a skimpy red dress that seemed to move and change color as though it were made out of flame. A pair of glistening wings sprouted from her back and red-gold hair cascaded around bare shoulders shimmering with golden glitter. The other girls all applauded Miranda's choice of attire as a Dancing Flame.

Aubrey rolled her eyes and tapped her own wand against her temple. When her spell was finished, she'd been changed into a statuesque woman wearing the height of ancient Egyptian fashion - a diaphanous white gown, broad gold collar encrusted with gems, and a heavy wig of ebony hair. "Cleopatra," the transformed Aubrey told them, twirling in a circle.

Soon enough Catherine and Ella were also in their own costumes, Maid Marion and Scarlett O'Hara respectively. When Ella had completed hers, the other girls all shrieked over her low cut Southern belle's dress and marveled that their bookish roommate dared to wear such an outfit even if no one could tell who she was. Then they all turned to Ginny.

"Well?" Aubrey said.

"We're waiting." Miranda smiled, her dress changing in an eerie shift of color.

Embarrassed, Ginny took out her wand and quickly muttered the appropriate spell. Something flickered in front of her eyes, and she felt the spell settle upon her skin. Hearing the gasp from her friends, she knew she'd changed. Turning again to face the mirror, she gasped herself, and then a grin split her face. Draco was never going to recognize her…

-----

Despite the rather unusual circumstances of House warfare as of late, the teachers had found enough time to completely transform the Great Hall. Although Draco knew they had gone to extra lengths in an effort to make students forget their battles and remember what the Yule Ball was about in the first place, he was unsure of how well it would work. He stared at the vaulted ceiling (still showing the starry sky above; it was the one thing that remained unchanged), and hoped that maybe it would work. Things had been so bad lately he'd been forced to withdraw from his normal friends because he couldn't bring himself to pretend much anymore.

Permitting himself a small sigh, Draco put away his gloomy thoughts and simply stared around the Great Hall, marveling at the modifications. Beveled mirrors hung upon the walls and elaborate chandeliers hovered in midair, their dangling crystals softly colliding to produce an undertone of sound, pure and sonorous. Priceless Persian carpets covered the marble floor beside long tables holding what looked to be a full-sized medieval feast, complete with detailed ice sculptures and a stuffed swan. A stage had been set up at the far end of the hall and Draco could see five young wizards setting up their instruments, and getting ready to play. A banner written upon in elegant gold scrawl proclaimed them the band Rebels Without Wands.

Draco glanced at his reflection in one of the mirrors and smirked, finally finding himself in a good mood. He'd followed Ginny's advice, and now the best-looking vampire in the world was staring back at him. Dressed in the Old World sophistication of black and red silk and satin, Draco admired his perfect white skin, his sharp canines, his hair that shone like gold falling just short of his shoulders. He'd always imagined vampires like this, beautiful creatures of the night so alluring that their victims came to them rather than the other way around. He crooked a finger at his reflection and laughed in delight at the way the action took on a seductive quality all its own.

"High spirits returned have they?" a cool voice quipped from behind him. Draco showed his new fangs in the mirror, and grimaced at Blaise's costume. The idiot had let his girlfriend dress him up as the mythical Sir Lancelot; she, of course, was Guinevere. Resplendent in chain mail and a red velvet tunic bearing an impressive coat of arms, the costume was made complete by the actual sword swinging at his side and his mask of a decidedly French face.

Draco spun on his heel, his black cape swirling most pleasingly, and gave his friend a curt bow. "Good evening, monsieur," he said softly, trying not to laugh as he assumed his character's seductive air and saw the disquieted look in Blaise's eyes.

"Stop playing," the now-Lancelot ordered him, and Draco straightened with a chuckle of satisfaction. A young woman with shining blonde tresses hanging down her back was approaching them, her dress definitely medieval. "Here comes Jaclyn," Blaise breathed, and Draco rolled his eyes at his friend's obvious infatuation.

"M'lady." Blaise swept a courtly bow as his girlfriend reached them. Jaclyn bestowed upon him a benevolent smile, and pointed at Draco.

"Who's this?" she asked, still smiling, as Blaise straightened and took her arm.

"Only a fellow denizen of darkness," Draco replied, now thoroughly enjoying his appearance. He kissed Jaclyn's fingertips, and took a step back. Her eyes traversed his body, and she seemed to be trying to pinpoint the sound of his voice.

"_Draco_?" she whispered finally, and then giggled as he inclined his head in acknowledgment of her address. "What a costume!" she breathed. "Not even the gaudy Gryffindors will be able to top this!" She dropped Blaise's arm and crossed the space between them to examine him more fully. Draco grinned as she ran her hands over the material of his archaic coat, and watched Blaise burning with jealously.

"All right," Blaise said finally, fuming at Draco's ability to draw females to him as easily as flowers drew bees. "That's enough, Jaclyn. Come on, the music's starting." He dragged her away, but Jaclyn still shot Draco a wink over her shoulder.

Draco smiled to himself and admired the strength of his reflection once again. _Ginny won't know what hit her!_

It was at that precise instant that beauty herself appeared behind him. A woman, perhaps no older than twenty, but possessing an aura of wisdom beyond her years, had just entered the Great Hall all alone. Draco calmly told himself to breathe as every male in the room spotted this temptation. Many overtly dropped their jaws and gaped, and several were brave enough to actually approach her. Before they could open their mouths though, she had turned away from them, and faced the corner where Draco was.

Draco's eyes widened before he could help it. He had told Ginny specifically where to meet him, and when. And, glancing briefly at his gold pocket watch, apparently he was not dreaming. It was _Ginny_ walking toward him now.

Draco turned to meet her, but suddenly found that his words of greeting had evaporated on his tongue. Thinking that there was no feasible way in the universe for his girlfriend to be more beautiful to him than she already was every day, he was stunned speechless to discover that he had been wrong. The woman standing now before him was a model of classic loveliness. Her limbs were clean and long, enshrined in a tunic of shimmering cerulean. Her skin was creamy white, unblemished, and showed in so many tantalizing places that Draco found it hard to concentrate on much else. But her face with its high cheekbones, almost aquiline nose, and full red lips commanded attention as well. And her hair, a bounty of raven locks flowing unbound down her back, drew his eyes as well. But it was Ginny that made the body truly gorgeous; it was her incomparable sprit that filled it, and lent such an ardent light to its vivid blue eyes. It was her grace of movement that entranced every person who watched her walk to him. It was her mellifluous voice that lightly laughed when one besotted boy dressed as a Muggle pirate came up to her and begged her to dance with him. It was her lissome gesture that stopped the others in their tracks, and her familiar smile as she leaned forward and kissed his cheek that finally made him snap back to reality.

"Ginevra Weasley," he whispered under his breath as he bowed to her, and pressed a swift kiss upon her hand, keeping with the pretense of his character. "I wouldn't have thought you to be the temptress type."

Ginny flashed him a smoldering look that she'd spent a lot of time perfecting in her mirror that morning. "I _am_ supposed to be Circe. I thought that would be obvious." She tossed her hair over her shoulder, and shot Blaise, who wasn't standing so far off, a coquettish look. The older boy's cheeks flamed scarlet.

Draco bit his lip in an effort not to laugh. "It's too perfect," he grinned. "You and me both; we'll be sirens who deny every victim that comes our way." They linked arms, and Ginny beamed up at him.

"Did you think I was going to let you have all the fun?" she teased, and touched his long blonde hair. "Not that you don't deserve it."

Draco smiled smugly, repressing the urge to acknowledge the compliment.

"Stop that," Ginny said, smiling also. He flashed her an innocent look but it quickly turned into a frown when he saw who had just entered the Great Hall.

"Whose costume is that?" he asked, pointing to the open doors of the Great Hall.

Ginny glanced in that direction, and went still. "Harry," she said soberly, indicating the figure Draco had inquired about. Harry, in a fit of black humor, had dressed as Salazar Slytherin in robes of green and silver, and a snake was curled around his neck, its head resting on his shoulder.

"And that's Parvati Patil with him," she continued. Parvati, in order to partner Harry (whom she'd reluctantly agreed to go with, despite his dark mood as of late), had dressed as the scholarly Rowena Ravenclaw and was stunning in robes of midnight blue.

"That must mean that's your brother and our beloved secret keeper following them, doesn't it?" Draco asked with a cutting tone. It was indeed Hermione and Ron who came next, hand-in-hand as Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy from the Muggle book, Pride and Prejudice. Ginny nodded, and put a hand on Draco's shoulder.

"Yes, but who cares, Draco? Can't we ignore them tonight?"

He looked into her pleading eyes for a moment and felt a pang of realization that this was a one-time opportunity. "Of course," he replied. "We're going to ignore _everyone_."

"Draco, darling!"

The simpering voice pulled both Draco and Ginny around to stare at a strange couple approaching them. Draco groaned, but quickly reassumed his Slytherin façade as Pansy Parkinson and her date, Draco's cousin, Grahm, came up to them.

"What a brilliant costume!" Pansy gushed, while giving Ginny a quick once over with her eyes. "However did you come up with it?"

"Good evening, Pansy," Draco said, nodding. "Grahm."

Grahm grinned and pulled his dark sunglasses down so that Draco could see his eyes.

"Evening, coz," he greeted him with a chuckle. "I can see you were successful in finding a date." Ginny's grip on Draco's shoulder tightened.

"Yes, and just who is she, Draco?" Pansy asked, looking at Ginny more directly this time.

Draco decided to at least have fun with it, and gave them both a jackal's grin. "This, my friends, is Circe, the most powerfully alluring witch of all time." Ginny, playing along, smiled at them both and curtsied. Grahm's eyes widened as he did an exaggerated double take. Pansy sneered.

"Yes, Draco, but who is she when she's not playing dress-up?"

Ginny stopped Draco with a finger on his lips and turned to Pansy with a smoky look. "A witch more worthy of our vampire's affections than you are, Pansy dear," she purred. Pansy opened her mouth in outrage, and Grahm laughed outright.

"She's got that right!" he declared, and Pansy shot him a sharp look. "Well just look at her," he said, shrugging. Pansy turned on her heel and stalked away. Grahm shook his head.

"Sorry, mate, I gotta go. She is my date, after all. Oh, and nice to meet you at last," he directed at Ginny. He blew her a kiss and left, hopping after Pansy.

Ginny broke into giggles as soon as Grahm was out of earshot. Draco frowned at her. "Nice performance," he congratulated her. "But what's so funny?"

"Your cousin," Ginny gasped. "Did you know that he listens to Muggle music?" Draco shook his head, and looked again at Grahm's costume, which was confusing him to no end. He didn't understand what a fifteen year old wearing red leather pants, a pair of dark sunglasses, tangled blonde hair covered by a strange-looking hat, and not much else was supposed to be. He also didn't understand when Ginny doubled over with laughter, saying something about how she recognized the outfit from something Colin Creevy had shown her. "Kid Rock," he thought she wheezed through her laughter.

Draco rolled his eyes, still not comprehending, and marked the other Slytherin's costumes off in his head. Pansy was dressed as one of the famous Which Witch singers, and had a hard time fending off fourth years who thought she was the real thing before they realized their mistake. He quickly went through the rest of the seventh year's costumes and all of the lower year's that he knew. Coming to two goblins dressed in finery and dripping with gaudy jewels, he stopped and pointed them out to Ginny.

"Vincent Crabbe and Millicent Bulstrode," he explained as Ginny raised her eyebrows. "They thought it would be cute to go as goblin king and queen. Don't ask me what they were thinking. Oh, and before I forget…" He pointed to the shadows behind Crabbe and Millicent. "Goyle," he said. Ginny followed his finger and saw the third wheel, Goyle, disguised as a walking skeleton.

"Shall we?" Draco asked then, gesturing to the open dance floor. The band had finally straightened themselves out, and launched into the first song, and he had a good idea of who most of his Housemates were so that he could avoid them (or flaunt himself and Ginny in front of them, whichever took his fancy).

Ginny didn't reply, merely grabbed his hands, and the two whirled into a waltz together. It took awhile for others to join in because everyone was so captivated by the image Draco and Ginny cut together. The two seemed to be the perfect pair, light matched with dark, a flawless blend of masculine and feminine wiles. However, when it became apparent that their eyes were only for each other, the rest of the students began to flood the dance floor in order to dance beside them. Or they tried to at least. Draco and Ginny spun through the crowd with the nimbleness sprung from love's light wings, and hardly seemed to notice the others at all, which may have been for the best as the students around them eyed each other warily, wondering which House they represented. It seemed that even the removal from a normal school setting did not cool tempers any.

Later, out of breath with laughter and giddy with the ebullience of the evening, Ginny and Draco came to a stop along with everyone else as the band stopped playing, and the Headmaster announced that dinner was served. A couple of people got the shock of their lives when they saw Dumbledore's costume – a smiling Professor Snape. In Ginny's mind, the dancing had been divine, like walking on clouds, but she was ready to stop before her feet were too sore to walk. Draco gallantly pulled out a chair for her at the long table Dumbledore had conjured up for the feast, and she gratefully sank into it.

The feast was soon underway and the conversation that filled the hall had a definite undertone. Just who was the blonde devil in disguise? And who was the Grecian enchantress at his side? Only the seventh year Slytherins (as well as Grahm) knew who Draco was, and only the seventh year Gryffindors and Ginny's roommates knew who she was. It made for an excellent deal, as most people who didn't recognize each other weren't speaking.

Ginny was much too happy to care about the rumors flying around the room. She took pleasure in being with Draco where everyone could see them, and the two soon fell into a private conversation, effectively blocking everyone else out.

"Come on," Draco said when the feast was done at last. He stood and pulled Ginny to her feet. She stole a glance at the giant clock on the wall, and sighed with the knowledge that they didn't have much time before everything went back to normal.

"Where are we going?" she asked as he led her toward the door.

Draco threw her a mischievous look over his shoulder and didn't say anything.

"Draco…." Ginny laughed as he sped up, forcing her to quicken her steps to a near run. "Draco, what are we doing?" Several people noticed them, and began whispering amongst themselves. She stuck her tongue out at them, and they started back in surprise as she giggled at her own immaturity. A pair of familiar eyes abruptly met hers from within the crowd by the doorway. Ginny frowned to realize that Ella was staring at her with a sad, knowing look. But before she could wonder any more, Draco had dragged her out of the Great Hall and into the hallways beyond.

"We have to get far away from everyone before midnight," he elucidated once they were well on their way up the stairs and away from the ball. Ginny raised her eyebrows as he veered off down an unfamiliar passage.

"Yes, but so soon, Draco? We didn't even have our last dance…" She stopped in the middle of the hallway. Draco stopped as well, turning to look at her. His eyes, a foreign shade of blue-violet in tone with his disguise, traversed her from head to toe.

"Maybe a minute longer," he declared finally. Ginny unfolded her arms and gave him a quizzical look as he strode to her.

"What—?" But she didn't finish her question. Draco had put a hand to his lips and motioned to the air above their heads. She looked up to find a bower of mistletoe hovering there, just one of the many festive decorations in the castle during this time of year. Draco put his hands to her face and pulled her into a kiss. It was short and sweet and Ginny found herself pleasantly flushed when they parted. Draco smiled contentedly and was silent in savoring the moment.

Ginny suddenly caught the strains of a voice floating out from the Great Hall and motioned for Draco to listen.

"…and that's it for Best Couple's Costume. Now, the awards for Best Individual Costume. There are two, one male and one female. And they go to… The witch Circe and the eighteenth century vampire!" The hall erupted with cheers and clapping but the voice spoke above them, saying, "Please come forward to accept your prizes."

"I wonder what they were," Draco said wistfully, leaning against the wall. Ginny looked at him for a minute as the clapping gradually faded into muted talking as it became apparent that Ginny and Draco were no longer in the room.

"I have your prize," Ginny announced suddenly. "Come here." Draco obliged, going to her with an expectant look on his face. "Not that," Ginny said, laughing. She pulled his hands to her waist and placed her own upon his shoulders.

"Here," she said. "Our last dance. All alone. Right here." She entreated him with a hopeful gaze.

Draco looked into her strange blue eyes and smiled. "Mmm… A nice prize," he said. "But it needs something." He waved his wand through the air and muttered a spell. Glittering light flowed from his wand to surround them in a cloud of star-studded mist. Another spell had the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw beside them singing a wordless song of strange lyricism. Draco pulled her close and the two swayed, captivated by the siren's song Draco had conjured. The melody wound around the two soulmates as the world disappeared from view and they saw only each other.

"I never knew I could be so happy," Draco was whispering, and Ginny nodded in wonderment.

-----

"This is stupid," Parvati whispered to Harry as they watched Ginny flee the room with her mysterious escort. "If you want to know so badly, why don't you just follow her?"

Harry's cheeks went scarlet and he turned away from the door. "No," he said roughly, touching the snake at his shoulder. "She wouldn't want me to—"

"Interrupt?" A new voice continued Harry's train of thought. Harry and Parvati turned to Ron as his dark eyes flashed toward the hallway outside. His costume of a brooding gentleman fit perfectly with the expression on his face. Hermione put a hand on his arm as he continued, "I don't think that's important anymore, Harry. We need to find out who she's with. If it's someone who will hurt her…" His dangerous tone told the rest of them that he clearly wouldn't be happy with the stranger no matter who he turned out to be. Hermione winced and her thoughts flew as she tried to think of some way to keep Ron away from the unsuspecting Ginny and Draco.

-----

"I don't think we should be doing this," Ella said nervously as a laughing Miranda and Aubrey peered around the next corridor to see if Ginny was there with her enchanting companion. She knew that nothing good would come of an encounter with Ginny and her Slytherin date. Especially if she was correct in deducing that the Slytherin was none other than the Prince of Snakes himself. Beside her, Catherine giggled into her hands and leaned against the wall. Ella wished she'd stopped the blue-eyed girl from having those last few Butterbeers.

Aubrey turned around and fixed Ella and Catherine with a glare. "Don't you two want to find out who Ginny's dating? And why she hasn't let us meet him? And if he's really as attractive in real life…?" Unable to keep up the pretense of anger, she dissolved into laughter and tugged on Miranda's arm. The two skipped off down the hall, onto the next.

Ella opened her mouth, ready to protest again, but grabbed Catherine instead. "Come on," she said, wishing she was as brave as a Gryffindor was supposed to be. The other girl stumbled after her.

-----

"Why are we doing this again?" Pansy complained loudly for the third time since the Slytherin group had left the Great Hall.

Grahm sighed, and turned to the older girl without disguising his contempt. "Because, Pansy darling, we want to know who this girl Drakey's seeing is, don't we?" Blaise seemed uncomfortable, an odd look for him especially in his Sir Lancelot get-up. Grahm ignored him and Pansy's protests, and stealthily rounded another corner.

"Besides," he whispered to himself, "It'll probably be the only excitement I'm gonna get all evening."

-----

It was nearly midnight when Ginny and Draco's song ended. Stopping mid-step, Draco smiled.

"Do you still like the night-life, Ginny?" he asked suddenly.

"Why?" she countered, giving him a sly look, but smiling back nonetheless.

"Well…" The blonde looked around. "We _could_ leave the school entirely – go somewhere else for the night."

"Like the Drowned Rat? Don't be ridiculous, Draco," Ginny laughed. "We'd miss the train in the morning!"

"So?" Draco pulled her close to him, making her yelp in surprise. "Who says we want to go home in the morning?"

"Draco…" Ginny tried to sound admonishing, but it came out breathless and pleased. "My mother expects me at the train platform tomorrow afternoon."

Draco smirked. "So does mine," he said, "But it's not going to stop me from staying here with you."

"Well, when you put it that way…" The two melted together into another kiss. Neither of them heard the two groups of people separately enter the hallway.

"Ginny!" a few relieved voice cried from their left, just as an exasperated "Draco!" came from their right. The two sprang apart and horror rose within them as they saw the Gryffindors and Slytherins stare at each other from across the hall and say, "What?" with frowning faces. Somewhere a clock began to strike twelve. The sound reverberated off the walls and everyone's costumes melted away leaving Ginny and Draco exposed before their respective friends and enemies.

**A/N: This is the end of Enemies to Peace, Part One of Saint-Seducing Gold. Part Two, Death Mark'd Love, is coming soon. Just what will happen now that everyone knows about our fair heros? To feature weddings and escapes, torture and guilt, true friends, wild jealousy, and inordinate amount of hate, and buckets of angst and agony. Oh, and death. Lots and lots of it.**


	11. Out of Hate

_A/N: In which the author is forced to ask, "Do you hate me now?" Oh, and this chapter may be rated R. perhaps you should stop while you're ahead.... No? Well, can't say I didn't warn you..._

****

**Part Two: Death Mark'd Love**

**Chapter Eleven: Out of Hate**

_"The time and my intents are savage-wild; more fierce and more inexorable far than empty tigers or the roaring sea."_

-----

Later, Ginny would remember the following moments having transpired in a fashion much like her dream of Draco dying had. Everything was so disjointed afterward – out of place and strange – and it all seemed too terrible to have really happened.

She felt an inward shudder as she turned to face the stunned expressions on her friend's faces. The tense silence of awful discovery filling the hallway was driving her mad, and she wished desperately that someone would speak and break the dreadful tension. As she grabbed for Draco's hand to regain some sense of reality, her brother fulfilled her wishes and spoke.

Ron was _gone_. His face was an apoplectic shade of violet and he was furiously digging in his pocket for his wand. "You bastard!" he was saying to Draco as a crimson flush rose in his cheeks to badly compliment the violet that already stained them. "You fucking bastard!" Behind him, Harry's shocked look was quickly fading into something resembling outrage and bitter resentment. Ginny's mouth opened in surprise and sudden dismay. Her gaze darted to Hermione who was looking at Harry with much the same expression. Ginny felt her heartbeat speed up and she clutched Draco's hand convulsively, all too aware that she was out of excuses.

"Ron," she said, trying anxiously for her mother's no-nonsense tone and not quite achieving it. Draco's fingers were trembling in her grasp. "Please, don't be a prat."

Blaise Zabini, at the other end of the hallway, suddenly began to laugh. Everyone turned to stare at the seemingly mad dark-haired boy. Draco turned a disbelieving gaze on his friend in the first move he'd made since the clock's strike, and Blaise grinned.

"Good joke, mate," he said, starting forward to clap a hand on Draco's shoulder. Draco shied away from him and shook his head. Blaise appeared wary as Draco pulled on Ginny's hand and tugged her back with him into the shadows of an alcove.

"I tried to tell you, Blaise," Draco warned, still shaking his head. His mind was racing, but all coherent thought seemed to have left him. He felt like a cornered animal, wild and desperate to escape. Beside him, Ginny shivered and closed her eyes. There was something abut the charged atmosphere that she didn't trust.

Blaise looked as confused as Ginny felt. "No," he spat, deliberately looking Ginny over with loathing. "You told me Gryffindor. You did not say Weasel."

Ron growled wordlessly and charged forward, but Blaise shoved him aside and frowned at Draco. Ron spluttered indignantly.

"I tried to tell you," Draco repeated, taking another step backward even though his back hit the wall in doing so. Ginny took note of the strain in the air and wished that she didn't feel so much like a convict with a hundred Dementors descending on her. Behind Blaise, the other Slytherins were scowling in the realization that Draco was no longer joking around

"Ginny, how _could_ you?" Aubrey's harsh whisper made Ginny's head swivel to stare at her roommates who had just entered the hall as well. Miranda was wide-eyed, Catherine seemed too surprised to do much of anything, and Ella only gave her the same sad look she'd given her back in the Great Hall. Standing next to Harry, Hermione looked like she was frantically trying to come up with some way to end this confrontation before violence broke out. Parvati was hanging on Harry's arm, looking unnerved. Ginny's head spun; how could her friends be this prejudice? This was looking like her worst nightmares come true.

"I've had enough of this," Ron fumed and leveled his wand at Draco. He opened his mouth to say a spell, but Blaise was too quick and had his wand out so fast that Ginny wondered if she'd blinked.

_"Expelliarmus!"_ he hissed, and Ron's wand leapt from his fingers into Blaise's outstretched hand. The next thing Ginny knew, it was far too late for Hermione to do anything. Ron tackled Blaise to the ground in an effort to get his wand back, and Harry immediately jumped forward to help him. The remaining Slytherins rushed into the fray at the defense of their fallen comrade and had the Gryffindors outnumbered before Miranda, not to be outdone, joined in as well. The other Gryffindors followed her lead and soon curses and punches were being thrown all along the hallway by girls and boys alike. Dazed, Ginny found herself being forcibly hauled away from Draco by Hermione and Ella.

"Stop," she muttered angrily, pulling viciously at her friend's encircling grip. "Hermione, _let go_." She whipped out her wand to help Draco who'd been inexorably drawn into the fight by Harry, but Ella seized her wrist and wrenched the wand away from her.

"Don't," she said calmly, looking Ginny in the eye as she would with a panicky horse, and speaking more seriously than Ginny was used to hearing her speak. "This is beyond any of us. We need to go get help." Hermione nodded in fierce agreement.

"But, Draco!" Ginny protested, her thoughts spinning insane circles as they tried to become something resembling their normal intelligence. She half-turned to watch as Draco and Harry squared off into a furious duel that had the air turning colors all around them. "I have to-"

"Help him by getting someone who can stop this madness," Hermione interjected. "We have to go, _now_."

Ginny found herself listening without hearing. Her brother had just managed to get his wand back from a snarling Blaise and he drew his arm back with a roar.

"_EXPELLIARMUS!"_

Blaise, hit full-on by the spell in close quarters, was jerked off his feet and slammed into the wall. There was a portentous cracking sound and he slumped to the ground, his limbs askew. Like magic, everyone froze where he or she was to stare at the spot where Blaise was lying on the ground. Ron's mouth fell open in disbelief. Ginny felt Ella drop her hand and heard her sprint down the hall at full speed, presumably to find a teacher.

Hermione was the first to make a move toward him – she rushed forward and dropped to her knees at Blaise's side, her wand hovering over his chest. Almost instantly, Grahm had pushed her out of the way and was checking his friend with his own wand. Draco left Harry behind without a second thought and stood over his cousin, looking down at Blaise with uncharacteristic anxiety. Grahm looked up at his cousin with astonishment showing in his dark eyes.

"He's dead, Draco. He must have broken his neck when..." He pointed ominously at Ron.

Everyone turned to stare at Ron, who was wide-eyed and visibly shaking, slowly backing away from where Blaise lay. Ginny, free to run back to Draco's side, stayed where she was and felt the world shrink away from her at this surreal announcement.

Draco heard Grahm's diagnosis clearly, but was somehow unable to fathom the meaning of the words.

"What? No, you're lying," he said, giving a short laugh and looking into his cousin's eyes. The certainty he saw there made him stumble backward. "No..." he repeated, his voice fading as his eyes fell back on Blaise's motionless body. He was distracted with a memory from Halloween night. He'd been trying to determine whether he loved anyone before realizing he was in love with Ginny. And then he was hit by the memory of a morning not so long ago when Blaise had kept a secret for him at his request and without explanation. Suddenly, a whole barrage of memories that included Blaise assaulted his mind, and he raised his hands as though trying to fend them off. Blaise had been his best friend for years. Blaise had been his friend before he ever knew what a friend was.

"I..." Ron's gulping words brought Draco out of his reverie. "I didn't mean to—I thought... thought I was just disarming him." He swallowed audibly. "It's not like I _meant_ to do it..."

Draco faced Ron with an odd look on his face. Mechanically, he bent toward Grahm, as though to touch his shoulder in reassurance, but his vacant gaze never left Ron's bewildered face. His hand fumbled blindly for a moment, and Grahm watched him in bemusement, trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly, Draco's fingers dug into Grahm's shoulder as his other hand triumphantly seized the hilt of Blaise's sword, the only remnant of the lifeless Slytherin's Lancelot costume.

Grahm realized what was about to happen now and grabbed for his older cousin's arm just as Draco shot forward with a wordless cry of rage and terror. Grahm's hands closed on empty air and the blade of Blaise's very-real sword went hurtling for Ron's middle as Draco charged blindly toward him.

Hermione screamed.

Draco felt the impact with strange satisfaction. Beneath the sword in his hands, Ron slid down the wall, his head falling at an odd angle against his shoulder as a pale trail of blood flowed past his lips. He tried to speak and couldn't.

Staring down at him, Draco curled his lip in the first Malfoy sneer to grace his face in weeks. Ron's eyes rolled up, trying to see the sneering Slytherin prince. Those eyes were still bright; the same dark pools that Draco felt like drowning in every time he met Ginny's gaze.

_Ginny!_

Abruptly, Draco came back to himself. All bloodlust, rage, and passion had fled from him, and, horrified, he released his grip on the bloody sword and leapt back as though scalded. He caught Ginny's horrified expression over Hermione's shoulder. His whole world turned itself upside down and inside out in that moment and he ceased to exist. He had to watch helplessly as, aghast – tears of bewilderment springing to her eyes – Ginny whirled around and ran away from him as fast as she could.

After that, he felt nothing. He looked on numbly as Ron crumpled to the ground in front of him to lie facedown on the stone floor. Harry scrambled to Ron's side, turning him over and pressing his hands to Ron's neck. Hermione pressed her hands to her mouth, and looked at Draco with something beyond anger or fear in her eyes, before running off after Ginny. Grahm was yelling at Draco to leave. He saw that Jaclyn had collapsed into hysterical sobs as he sluggishly turned and saw her bent over Blaise's body. Ginny's roommates were clinging to each other and staring at him in terror. Pansy and Parvati stood on opposite sides of the hallway, wands still in their hands. Grahm was screaming at him now.

Suddenly hearing Grahm's words, Draco finally turned and bolted down the hallway, fleeing silently and deadened to the unspeakable thing he had just done.

-----

Grahm watched Draco run away feeling somewhat detached from the whole frightful affair. Running now was his cousin's only chance of escaping immediate conviction, and Grahm didn't begrudge him that, despite Draco's new status as a murderer. Still feeling slightly apathetic, he turned around.

"Fuck," he suddenly whispered under his breath, hit by the image of Blaise's lifeless form, his ears assaulted by the sound of Jaclyn's gasping sobs. This was wrong. The gaping hole in his chest was wrong. This sudden issue of life and death was wrong. This was wrong because… _Because this was one of his best friends lying dead on the floor._ And all because of some imbecile school rivalry? Oh, Merlin, it was too ironic to think of how much he had incited this, how he had done nothing to stop it, how he had only fed the flames of a foolish hatred.

Abruptly, he became aware of footsteps skidding to a halt by his side.

"Pritchard! What's…?" Professor McGonagall's voice dwindled into nothingness as her eyes took in the scene of misery before her. Grahm looked up to find his Transfiguration teacher and that little Gryffindor girl – Ella, he thought – standing close by. He wondered absently if either female had ever looked so pale in her life. He felt something akin to hilarity rising in him and tried to squash it, knowing that if he let it out he'd only end up in hysterics like Jaclyn.

"Where did they go, Pritchard?" Professor McGonagall said shortly, not looking at him. She bent next to Blaise, and touched the tip of her wand to his forehead. Ella merely looked terrified as her Gryffindor playmates came over and enfolded her in their embrace.

"They?" Grahm asked, raising his eyebrows and forcing down the feeling that he was going to be sick. He looked up at the ceiling as she actually put her hands on Blaise's chest. "What 'they', Professor?"

"The ones who did this, you silly boy," she snapped, grimacing at him. Her eyes betrayed her though. Shining with unshed tears, and looking old beyond belief, Grahm felt something snap within him to see them so, and quaked with suppressed laughter.

"You think that someone outside the school did this, don't you?" He chuckled darkly and wondered that he wasn't half-mad already. "It wasn't Deatheaters," he said viciously and Professor McGonagall froze where she was trying to push a distraught Harry out of the way in an effort to get at Ron. "It was Hogwarts students," Grahm related, indicating Ron and cracking a demented grin. "_Your_ students, professor."

"Minerva, we came as soon as..." Grahm began to wonder if everyone's sentences were going to fade away. Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout had entered the hallway and Professor McGonagall straightened, pushing back strands of hair from her face that weren't there.

"Get the headmaster," she ordered them faintly. "Potter, I think you and the others should go on to the infirmary."

Harry finally noticed Professor McGonagall's presence and looked up at her with strangely glittering eyes. "No," he said firmly. "I want to stay here with Ron." He was clutching one of Ron's limp hands in his own and was refusing to move. Grahm began to laugh harder as he lost control, and then found himself giving over to the tears that had been threatening ever since Draco left. Harry ignored him, and stared up at Professor McGonagall, steely-eyed.

"Very well, Potter," she said. She turned to her colleagues. Professor Sprout nodded, and then ran off at a very fast trot to get Professor Dumbledore. Professor Flitwick quaked and closed his eyes tightly.

"I will go see to Madam Pomfrey," he said softly, then left as well.

Grahm sat heavily on the ground, his eyes burning with salty tears. He only barely noticed when Professor McGonagall knelt and put comforting arms around him, and not Harry Potter.

_A/N: I couldn't help myself. I spat this chapter out, all right? I had it planned forever, and it's been rewritten (I can honestly say) at least ten times. But I didn't plan to put it up now... I suppose I'm looking for reactions here... And before you jump down my throat (though I'm sure none of you smiling angels will :-) ) Ron is my absolute most favorite character ever. Really._


	12. Out of Remorse

**Chapter Twelve: Out of Remorse**

_"O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?"_

-----

Draco sat where he'd collapsed earlier in Professor Snape's chair. He was watching the phosphorescent light of the rows of potions glittering all around him, but his mind was elsewhere, roaring at him so loudly he felt like to die from the intensity. Sounds and images of the night replayed themselves in an endless loop through his head: laughter, light and love succeeded by hatred, death and misery. He watched Ginny's smiling gaiety be replaced by the terror in her brother's eyes and the blank surprise on Blaise's face. _I love you_ turned into _how could you_ and behind it all, he could hear the sound of his father's laughter echo menacingly through his skull.

"Draco."

Snape's voice was quiet. The professor had been engrossed in a book when Draco had entered his office about half an hour ago out of breath from his flight down to the dungeons. Snape, realizing something unusual was going on, had steered the incoherent boy toward his desk where he could sit down. Once Draco had calmed down, he'd managed to spill the whole story about him and Ginny and how he'd ended up stabbing her brother with Blaise Zabini's sword. Draco hadn't thought at the time to be grateful for the professor's nodding reception of his tale, but now he wondered at the rapidity of such acceptance. It was highly probable that Snape had already been aware of his more-than-friends relationship with Ginny.

Grey eyes flickered upward to find the Potions master standing before him, a small glass of blue liquid in his hand. He looked on blankly as the professor offered him the potion.

"Drink," Snape said. When Draco didn't move to take the glass, he pushed it into the boy's hand that then unconsciously tightened around it. "Drink," he said again, and frowned at the expressionless teenager.

Draco stared at his teacher and didn't see him. He saw only darkness, only death. When he finally felt the coolness of the potion resting in his grip his gaze traveled to the glass in his hand, then back up to look at Snape.

"What is it?" Draco asked, then – seemingly startled by the sound of his own voice – he began to shudder. He thrust the potion at Snape (who barely caught it) and covered his face with his shaking hands. "What will it do to me?" he whispered between his fingers.

"It will help you sleep," Snape replied, setting the potion aside on the desk. "Draco..." He knelt in front of the trembling boy. "You should rest." He could see the dark circles under his student's eyes, the pallid cast to his already-pale skin. He watched the boy's shoulders convulse as though he were sobbing but knew he wasn't; Malfoys were not the kind to cry, even in the face of what had happened tonight. So Snape looked on, unsure of what action he should take. After all, Severus was not the sort of person one ran to with stories of woe. He did not tolerate foolishness easily, and he'd warned Draco himself that being friends with a Weasley was a mistake.

He allowed himself a frustrated sigh, remembering what had happened not a mere half an hour ago. Draco had come to _him_ for help. The young Malfoy had counted on _him_, of all people, to be his best chance for understanding and protection. It was true that the two shared a unique friendship as teacher and student, but for him to come here with this... To expect Severus to tell him what to do...

Well, more fool him.

More fool the both of them.

"Draco, stop," he said, and reached forward to draw the boy's hands away from his face. Draco's high cheekbones were stained bright red but his eyes were as dry as Snape knew they'd be. Their gazes met, and Snape saw such guilt in Draco, such utter misery, that he let go of his hands.

Picking up the glass again, he offered it to the boy. "Drink, Draco. You need to rest right now." He kept the tone of his voice low so as not to startle him.

Draco ignored the proffered glass and groped for Snape's wrist. "Should I, Professor?" he asked in a voice too soft and tired to reflect the fever shining in his pale eyes. "How can I rest? Knowing what I've done and what will happen now... How can I rest?"

"You must," Snape replied simply. He broke Draco's grip on his arm, and the boy looked down at the hand as if it were an alien part of himself he'd been unaware of until now. He pushed the glass at Draco and made him look up. "Listen, Draco. There's no excuse for what you did. You know that. I know that. The Headmaster will know that. When he finds you here, he will be undeniably fair in punishing you. You're going to answer to the Ministry's justice whether you like it or not. You might as well be lucid when they come to take you away."

"Are you going to get them, then?" Draco asked, a dull pain overtaking the fever in his gaze. He stared down at the glass of blue liquid.

"Are you going to leave this office?" Snape countered, watching Draco swirl the potion.

The Slytherin stiffened and then slumped back in the chair, looking at Snape once more. "No, Professor. I can't leave without—" His voice caught in his throat and for one brief moment Snape thought he saw those impossible tears shining in Draco's eyes. But one blink later... "I can't leave," he said, and Snape was sure he'd been mistaken.

"I thought you'd feel that way," he said, and straightened. "You're a true Slytherin, Mr. Malfoy. Pride will always win out for you in the end." He gestured to the potion in Draco's hands and turned for the door. "Drink. I'll be back soon and, keeping the object of pride in mind, I'm sure you'd rather be well-rested when you face who will be coming back with me."

Draco watched the professor leave in silence and slowly drank the sleeping draught. He stared at the empty glass for a moment, then – gripped by his helplessness – he threw it down in one violent motion and watched the shining pieces of glass shatter and spin across the floor.

-----

Ginny paced the floor of the Gryffindor Common Room. Numbness was spreading its cold tendrils out from the center of her chest, filling her with uncertainty. There was something familiarly surreal about what had transpired in that dark hallway tonight.

The portrait hole swung open to admit a small group of Gryffindor boys, newly returned from the masquerade. People had been coming in for a while now, laughing raucously as they entered but immediately sobering as someone sidled up to them and filled them in with a sketchy version of what had happened. So far, all of them were congregating near the fireplace to watch Ginny pace as though they could determine the truth of the situation from watching her expressionless face.

Shaking her head to dispel the fog growing in her mind, she looked up at the sound of someone calling her name. Apparently, Colin Creevy had been with the last group of boys because he was now standing in front of her, an angry cast to his bright blue eyes. Ginny watched his mouth move for a moment, wondering what he was so mad about, then walked right on past him to resume her circle of the room.

"What's wrong with you!?" Colin raged as Ginny brushed by him, a dull look on her face. One of Ginny's roommates, Miranda, stood up from where she'd been sitting on the couch trying to comfort Ella.

"She must be in shock," she said nastily, glaring at Ginny as she turned around and walked back toward them, blind to their presence. Ella made as if to stand up, wiping the tears from her cheeks, but Catherine held her back.

"Stop it, you two!" Ella cried. "Leave Ginny alone. This wasn't her fault!"

"Not her fault, huh?" another sixth year boy replied, coming away from the fire a bit. "She's the one who was waltzing about with Draco Malfoy, wasn't she? I'd say this is _all_ her fault." He leaned close to Ella and she cringed back as he hissed, "Malfoy's a _Slytherin_, or hadn't you noticed?"

"Exactly!" Colin agreed, and grabbed Ginny's arm as she passed him. He swung her toward him and she blankly met his angry gaze without protest. "What did you think you were doing, Ginny? He's the _enemy_!"

"No one's the enemy! Would you listen to yourselves? This is just school; the real enemy is You-Know-Who. How can you—"

"Shut up, Ella!" Aubrey joined in. "What do you know about it, anyway, with your face always stuck in some book." Ella fell back as though her friend had slapped her. Aubrey jumped up to flank Colin and Miranda in front of Ginny. "What _were_ you thinking, huh, Ginny? Answer me!" And she shook Ginny by her arms, bare and unnaturally cold as she was still wearing her Grecian dress from the ball.

Ginny seemed to awaken, blinking her eyes and focusing on her friends. "You don't understand," she said quietly, looking away.

"Damn right, we don't!" the sixth-year boy said. "Why don't you explain?"

"Yeah!" Colin put in. "Although I don't see how anyone can explain away _Malfoy_."

"Don't—" Ginny began, eyes widening, but Miranda cut her off.

"And don't go defending him, Ginny! Draco Malfoy _is_ the enemy, no matter how you look at it. His father is a Death-Eater after all and—"

Suddenly everyone was speaking at once, and Ginny found herself encircled by angry Gryffindors on all sides as they berated her about Draco and the pain and misery she'd caused all of them by going out with him. It soon became clear that none of them knew what had really happened, even the people there at the time seemed to know only warped versions of the true events as they spewed their hatred. A few began to shout, trying to be heard over the others, their mouths trembling in anger or confusion when they weren't yelling. Ginny couldn't make sense out of any of it, and heard the words in fragments, coming out of the whirling darkness at her like barbed arrows.

"...Malfoy! And that damn prefect with his..."

"...and not just any Slytherin, oh no. You had to choose him! Do you have any idea...?"

"...slimy git, with his stupid smirk..."

Ginny tried to back away, but they were all around her, pressing in on her, faceless bodies screaming at her so loudly that she couldn't see or feel or think. "Stop it," she whispered, but no one heard her.

"...got what they deserved! Harry should've..."

"...just like his father!"

"Stop it," Ginny said again, and, "Stop it!" she shouted, her hands rising in an unconscious effort to block the noise out.

"...and now we'll all pay..."

"...go get revenge right now! We need to..."

"STOP!" Ginny screamed, and flung herself blindly in the direction of the portrait hole. The people in front of her parted in surprise as she flew into Harry Potter's arms. Sobbing and quite close to hysteria, Ginny clung to his shoulders desperately, before realizing that everyone had stopped shouting. She straightened, saw Harry, and stumbled back a few steps. The others were watching Harry carefully, guarded expressions on their faces. Ginny looked around and saw that Hermione, who'd previously been huddled in the corner of the room, had jumped up and come toward him, an earnest and wild air radiating from her.

"Harry!" she said, eyes weirdly bright. "Ron, is he—"

"Ron's dead," Harry said flatly, and Hermione stopped short. Her face turned white alarmingly fast, and she swayed unsteadily before someone –Ginny thought maybe it was Neville, but it might've been someone else—grabbed her and guided her over to a chair. Harry sank down on the couch and stared at the floor without further comment.

Ginny went rigid at Harry's announcement, and knew she'd gone as deathly pale as Hermione. Her brother was dead and Draco... Draco had done just what everyone had expected him to do.

-----

Draco felt tired, but he couldn't sleep. He had his head down on the Potion master's desk, his cheek flat against the coolness of the dark wood. Carefully, he dipped his fingers into the glass of water and touched them to a blank piece of parchment beside him. Dip. Touch. Dip. Touch. He covered the paper with tiny dots and wet circles until the sodden patterns blurred and became nothing. Breathing slowly, he pushed the glass out of reach and closed his eyes.

As he tried to sleep, he became aware of a sound coming from the hallway: the soft whisk of a cloak being dragged over stone. The footsteps were heavy and hesitant as though the person approaching was unsure about entering the room. Draco raised his head up and stared at the open door, waiting. No teacher coming to take him away would walk like that.

After several moments of listening, Draco sat up straighter, eyes widening in recognition. His incredulity was confirmed when Ginny's chalk-white face appeared, peering around the corner of the doorway. Draco started to his feet before he could help it and consequently knocked Snape's chair over.

"Ginny, I—" he blurted, and then stopped. What could he say to her to make up for what he had done? Suddenly struck by the fact that he might have lost her for good, he felt his knees weaken and his vision darken. "Ginny," he whispered, clutching the side of the desk to keep himself upright. "I didn't... I don't... I'm _sorry_."

Ginny came into the room more fully when she saw Draco growing faint. Dropping her cloak on the ground, she rushed to his side to embrace him and buried her face in his neck. Astonished, he wrapped his arms around her too, resting his head on her shoulder and shaking with relief.

"It's okay," she murmured against him then. "It's all right." She drew away and made him look into her eyes that were shining with an unreleased sorrow and such passion that Draco almost gave into his relief with weeping to see it. "I love you," she said soothingly, and raised his trembling hands to her lips.

"But, how...?" Draco shook his head and began again. "Why? I killed your brother!"

Ginny closed her eyes for a moment as though she was struggling with some inner anguish, then said, "Because you're more to me than anything else in this world. If I don't forgive you now, I'll go insane. Without you... I'm not sure I could go on living my life as it is. You've become everything to me. _Everything_."

"But why?" Draco persisted in an agonized whisper. "Why am I everything to you? I've done nothing but divided you from your friends and family. What did I ever do to deserve your faith in me? I betrayed you just now." Overwhelmed, he forced himself to take a step away from her and, looking at the ground, said, "I don't deserve your love."

"You asked me why, and I'm going to tell you. Draco..." Ginny closed the space between them. "You listened to me when no one else could. You took the time to be my friend. You _understand_ me in a way no one ever has. Don't you remember? We're soulmates."

Draco looked up, remembering the long ago day in October that he'd told her that and the surreal surprise of her echoing the sentiment. He looked at her and saw all his petty fears drop away in her eyes. For some reason he'd forgotten that as soulmates they transcended certain realities. He'd forgotten that he wasn't the only one who'd come to love someone with all that love entailed.

"Ginny," he breathed in his dawning realization. She smiled softly and he enfolded her in his arms. "I think I love you more than I'll ever be able to tell you."

She pulled his head down and kissed his cheek then touched his face with her fingers and kissed him on the mouth.

"I know," she said at last, and smiled again.

Just as Draco felt the beginnings of a smile curving his own lips, a cold voice spoke from the doorway.

'Well, well. Isn't this precious?"

Draco felt Ginny cringe with a detached sort of interest as to why she recognized the sound of his father's voice. He looked across the room to find the senior Malfoy standing there in all his dark glory: black clothing from head to toe, silver-blonde hair pulled back from the severity of his pale face.

"Father," he said, and gently but firmly pushed Ginny behind himself. "What are you doing here?"

Lucius raised the thin line of one eyebrow. "I heard," he said, walking over to the desk, "that my only son was facing a Ministry inquiry and prudently thought to obtain the specifics of the story from you." He picked up the half-empty water glass that Draco had been using earlier and peered at it curiously. Ginny's hand found Draco's; both had suddenly clammy palms. "Before I had to read it in the papers," Lucius clarified, setting the glass down again and switching his gaze back to his only son.

"What did you do, Draco? Does it have anything to do with the little whore lurking behind you?"

Draco had been in the middle of wondering how in the name of Merlin his father had found out about a fight that'd taken place mere hours ago when he heard this. Rational thought rushed from his mind and he visibly bristled.

"I killed her brother, but it was an accident. And her name is _Ginny_." Ginny's hand tightened around his own.

Lucius stepped around Professor Snape's fallen chair. "I'll call her what she is. How dare you talk back to me, Draco? You've changed this year, and not for the better. I may have to teach you a lesson." He strode forward, and, before either teenager could register what was happening, hit Draco with a full-bodied slap across the face. Head snapping to the side, Draco would have gone sprawling to the floor had Ginny not been behind to catch him.

"My insolent son," Lucius sneered. "Playing at love is bad enough, but with a Weasley..." Draco didn't notice Ginny stiffen at Lucius' words. His face was afire with pain and his head rang so loudly he could scarcely hear his father's words. Unhappy memories of Malfoy Manor and his childhood filled him. "You are my kin and so must obey certain rules. Malfoys do not associate with Gryffindors, Draco, much less Weasleys. Do you hear me?"

He knew from experience that he couldn't fight back. He knew it was useless to say anything at all. But if he'd learned anything in the months spent with Ginny, it was that he was the only one with control over his destiny. This was his life after all. Hardly daring to believe his own idiocy, he lifted his chin and said loudly, "I love her."

The slap came from the other side this time and hurt twice as much. Reactionary tears sprang to Draco's eyes, but he focused himself on the warmth of Ginny's hands holding him up. She looked like she was choking back her own tears of anger and helplessness.

"And I suppose you would marry her, too?" Lucius proposed in a silky voice that Draco knew spoke of impending danger more clearly than anything else.

Dimly, he responded through a haze of red pain, "Yes."

When he opened his eyes, he was lying on the floor; Ginny was kneeling at his side and Lucius was demanding that he stand up. Ginny refused on his behalf. She narrowed her gaze at Draco's father and matched him for calmness as she replied, "Leave him alone, or I'll kill you myself." Draco might have been proud of her if he could make the room stop its alarming tilt to the left.

Lucius didn't even give her the courtesy of an acknowledgement. Ignoring her, he leaned over and yanked Draco to his feet. The room spun in crazy circles as all the blood rushed from Draco's head, and Lucius' fingernails dug into his arm.

"Stupid," Lucius seethed, "to think I wouldn't find out. What were you going to do – run away? As a Malfoy, you know you can't hide from the Dark Lord. And now she'll have to die, too. Seems you're in the habit of killing Weasleys, perhaps I should make you be the one to dispatch her?" He punctuated each question with another slap, and each statement with a tighter grip on Draco's arm. Draco could feel hot blood in his mouth but he knew he couldn't strike back. It would mean certain and immediate death without a doubt.

"Leave him alone!"

Ginny's voice pierced the air with all the desperation and rage Draco was trying to suppress. Lucius turned to her and Draco blinked several times before he saw her standing in front of them, wand outstretched.

"If you don't let go of Draco right now, I am going to do something Professor Dumbledore taught me was wrong. And I am _not_ going to regret it."

Lucius gave her a contemptuous laugh. "What? Is the Gryffindor going against the principles of her venerated Headmaster? How strange. And yet... how thought provoking. You must have spent quite a lot of time with my son to be so willing to go to Azkaban for no reason. Come. Kill me if you must. I really shouldn't stand in the way of young love, should I? Punish me for my inexcusable crimes."

Ginny's eyes blazed with dark flames, and Draco found himself thrust aside as she leveled her wand. Catching himself as he stumbled into the wall, he heard the dreadful words.

"_Avada Kedavra!_"

Horrified, Draco turned around. Lucius threw Draco's wand on the desk.

"There," he said serenely. "Lesson learned. Now you know what happens when you play with fire, Draco." He tugged his gloves straight, then brushed past his son and left the room without looking back.

Draco couldn't move. He stood staring down at Ginny's lifeless body, growing cold where it lay collapsed on the floor. Her face was that familiar mask of terror mingled with surprise that usually bespoke of the Killing Curse's deadly work. But it wasn't Ginny. Not his Ginny. Not Ginny who'd forgiven him for killing her brother because she _loved_ him. Not Ginny who'd finally made his life worth living. He never deserved her and now...

He didn't remember falling to his knees or even crawling to her side, but Draco found himself hugging Ginny's unresponsive body to his own, and for once in his life, the tears came without anything to stop them.

-----

"Draco?"

"...don't deserve this. No matter what she... Oh, Merlin..."

"Draco!"

Draco's grey eyes snapped open at the sound of Professor Snape's voice, and he straightened from where he'd been sleeping slumped across the professor's desk. "Professor! I—"

The Potions master bowed his head and stepped aside. Draco stared. Ginny, her face half-hidden by a curtain of her red hair, was standing there before him alive and well.

"Ginny," he breathed, and stood up to go to her. He was vaguely aware of Snape going to someone he couldn't see in the background, but all of his thoughts were now focused on Ginny and the utter lack of expression on her face.

"Ginny?"

She looked up at him as he approached, and he halted upon seeing the depth of the pain glistening in her eyes. His heartbeat sped up at the thought that his dream had been untrue in more ways than one. She was lost to him now; he'd done the unforgivable in that moment of fury and now he was going to lose the only good thing that had ever happened to him. She was slipping further away with every passing moment, and he knew he couldn't fathom life without her.

Before she could say anything, his anguish poured out of him. "Ginny, I didn't mean for any of it to happen; it was all an accident. You saw what happened. He killed Blaise and I couldn't... Ginny, I couldn't think. I didn't think. I shouldn't have... I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, but—"

Ginny's eyes had been steadily filling with tears as he went on until finally she interrupted his flow of words by stepping forward. Draco stopped, blood pounding audibly in his ears. An overpowering fear gripped his mind and made it impossible for him to speak. He watched Ginny helplessly.

She stared at him for a moment, the tears threatening to spill on her cheeks, then suddenly swung her arm out and slapped him so hard that he staggered sideways into the desk. Black flowers bloomed in his gaze and the terror and pain of his nightmare returned, only multiplied by the fact that Ginny had struck him and not his father.

He felt something else strike him, but when his vision cleared, he found that it had merely been Ginny's arms wrapping around him. She was sobbing against his chest, her fingers digging painfully into his back. Faint with relief and the aftershocks of terror, he felt his knees buckle and the two of them slid to the floor together. He buried his face in her hair and whispered her name as her sobs intensified. The two clung desperately to one another as though they thought the entire world was going to shatter and send them tumbling into the abyss at any moment.

Professor Snape's voice cut through their misery. "I regret the necessity of the interruption, Mr. Malfoy, but just what were you planning to do now?"

_Do?_ Draco's mind buzzed, unable to process the question. What did it matter what he did? Ginny was here now, her tears soaking through his robes; what else mattered?

"Mr. Malfoy."

The new voice caught both Draco and Ginny's attention. They pulled away slightly – their eyes meeting for a small moment containing all of their naked fears – and looked up at Professor Dumbledore together.

"Mr. Malfoy, you are aware that there are consequences to your actions." The Headmaster's voice was soft and just and there was no question involved with his words. Draco nodded anyway. Ginny slumped and turned her face into his chest, and Draco's hand rose to stroke her tumbled hair.

Dumbledore continued. "I'm sure neither of you intended for any of this to happen as a result of your actions, but the simple truth is that it has. Draco, I know that you are now feeling repentance, but that does not alter the fact that what you've done is irreversible. Despite extenuating circumstances, I cannot stop the Ministry from trying you as an adult wizard fully responsible for his words and deeds. You are eighteen now, correct?"

"My birthday was last month," Draco said, closing his eyes. Ginny made a little sound low in her throat and pressed against him, causing Draco to wish that the world really would shatter. The two of them couldn't be separated by someone else if there was no one else.

"Then I'm afraid you'll have to come with me," the Headmaster said gravely. "There are certain laws prohibiting a suspected criminal's interaction with others, so you'll have to wait in one of the lower dungeon rooms until a Ministry official can come for you."

In the end, it didn't take any interference to part them. They stood together and Ginny reached up to gently push a stray piece of hair from Draco's face. He touched her hand, and the brief intimacy spoke volumes.


End file.
